SELF-RELIANCE 


SELF-RELIANCE 

A  Practical  and  Informal  Discussion  of 

Methods  of  Teaching  Self-Reliance,  Initiative  and 

Responsibility  to  Modern  Children 


By 

DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER 

Author  of 

The  Squirrel  Cage,  What  Shall  We  Do  Now 
A  Montessori  Mother,  Mothers  and  Children,  Etc. 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES 

Edited  by  M.  V.  O'SHEA 
ProfcMor  of  Education,  The  University  of  Wisconsn 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


*   COPYRIGHT  1916 
THI  BOBBS-MKRRILL  COMPANY 


or 

BRAUNWORTH   &    CO. 

BOOKBINDERS    AND    PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN,    N.   V. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

L  SOME  GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS 1 

Self-reliance  a  fundamental  necessity — Self-reli- 
ance increasingly  difficult  in  modern  life — Modern 
conditions  encourage  passivity  in  children— Neces- 
sity for  changed  expressions  of  self-reliance — 
Older  forms  simpler  because  better  known— Ideal 
of  passive  ownership  is  the  great  barrier. 

II.  SELF-HELP  IN  EARLY  CHILDHOOD    ....      *      11 

Training  for  self-reliance  should  begin  with  the 
first  childish  activities — Impulse  toward  self-reli- 
ance often  thwarted  through  parental  misunder- 
standing,— or  through  too  continuous  parental  as- 
sistance— Importance  of  use  ^  of  tools  in  early 
childhood, — tools  of  many  varieties — No  surer  be- 
ginning for  the  habit  of  self-help  than  the  con- 
sistent training  of  the  capacity  for  it. 

III.  AFTER  BABYHOOD  AND  BEFORE  SCHOOL  AGE       .      .      26 

Necessity  for  atmosphere  of  self-help  throughout 
the  life  of  the  whole  family — The  child  should  do 
his  part  in  the  routine  of  family  life — The  child 
prefers  regular  tasks  to  spasmodic  demands — The 
earning  of  money  as  one  means  of  inculcating  self- 
reliance  in  children. 

IV.  CHILDHOOD  UNDER  APARTMENT-HOTEL  CONDITIONS  .      39 

Family  life  with  no  housework — Bad  effects  of  this 
condition  hard  but  not  impossible  to  avoid — The 
mother  who  works  out  of  the  home — The  routine 
of  the  children's  lives  as  a  substitute  for  house- 
work: care  for  their  own  persons,  going  to  bed, 
answering  the  telephone,  keeping  the  playroom  in 
order,  wearing  the  right  sort  of  outdoor  wraps — 
Modern  children  as  travelers— Ordering  a  meal 
at  a  restaurant. 

V.  RAW  MATERIAL .54 

Use  of  raw  materials  a  touchstone — Presence  of 
raw  materials  stimulates  creative  instinct — Need 
for  great  variety  of  raw  materials — Purchase  of 
finished  products  to  be.  ayoi<ie4  when  possible— -. 

''>c> « 


CONTENTS— Continued 
CHAPTER  PAGE 

Tools  should  be  the  best  possible,  sharp,  conve- 
nient and  plentiful — Continual  need  for  patience  by 
parent— Large  supply  of  raw  materials  less  expen- 
sive than  ready-made  toys. 

VI.  THE  ROBINSON  CRUSOE  INSTINCT 69 

Every  one  more  or  less  a  Robinson  Crusoe  at 
heart— Children  delight  in  desert  island  stories  and 
experiences — A  desert  island  possible  near  any 
home — Value  of  the  "family  hike" — Use  of  maps 
— The  family  camp — Digging  a  cave — A  house  in  a 
tree— Mastery  of  nature  leads  to  self-confidence  in 
all  situations. 

VII.  SOCIAL  SELF-RELIANCE 80 

Need  for  training  in  natural  wholesome  methods 

of  mingling  with  one's  companions — Children  can 
be  trained  to  do  without  cumbrous  social  machinery 
— Modern  children  are  often  socially  spineless — 
Frequent  simple  parties,  picnics,  charades,  games 
— Early  experiences  in  natural  social  life  lead  to 
wholesome  adolescent  life — Experience  proves  to 
children  that  an  active  life  is  happier  than  a  pas- 
sive one. 

VIII.  THE  USE  OF  BOOKS  AND  LIBRARIES      ....      91 
Two  halves  to  every  self-reliant  act:  the  mental 
impulse  to  master  conditions;  the  ability  to  use 

the  right  tools — In  modern  life  books  are  pre- 
eminently important  tools — Need  for  home  train- 
ing in  the  use  of  books — Libraries  as  important  as 
schools — Use  of  an  encyclopedia — Other  reference 
books — Loose-leaf  scrap-books — Training  of  the 
critical  habit  of  mind. 

IX.  MAKING  DREAMS  COME  TRUE 100 

Emotion  which  finds  no  outlet  in  action  is  un- 
wholesome— Suppressed  desires  have  bad  later  ef- 
fects— How  to  avoid  suppressing  the  desires  of 
children — The  little  boy  who  wants  to  be  an  In- 
dian, or  the  driver  of  a  motor-truck,  or  an  actor, 
or  an  acrobat. 

X.  FINANCIAL  SELF-RELIANCE  AND  RESPONSIBILITY  .      .110 

Self-reliance  based  at  least  half  on  intelligent  buy- 
ing— Buying  alarmingly  important  and  alarmingly 
neglected  in  modern  American  life — Practically  all 
business  training  devoted  to  selling — No  training 


CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER  PAGE. 

for  buying  outside  the  home — Need  for  coherence 
in  home  economics — Children  should  not  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  family  council  table — Children 
should  be  directly  trained  in  intelligent  buying — 
Buying  should  not  usurp  too  large  a  place  among: 
family  activities — Beginning  of  financial  responsi- 
bility for  boys  and  for  girls. 

XI.  ALLOWANCES 125 

Importance  of  the  budget  system,  for  the  family, 
and  for  the  child — Lack  of  knowledge  of  purchas- 
ing power  of  money  causes  financial  irresponsi- 
bility— Well-planned  allowances  another  link  be- 
tween parent  and  child  —  Determination  of 
amount  of  allowance  according  to  consideration  of 
facts — Financial  responsibility  should  come  step  by 
step — No  irregular  additions  to  allowance — Expe- 
rience in  regulating  his  own  spending  best  possible 
preparation  for  more  complicated  financial  prob- 
lems. 

XII.  ADOLESCENT  GIRLS 134 

Steadying  effect  of  responsibility  at  this  critical 
period — Dissatisfaction  with  home  conditions  usu- 
ally accompanies  adolescence — Some  measure  of 
responsibility  for  home  conditions  best  safety- 
valve  for  discontented  girls — Mother's  temptation 
to  tighten  her  grasp  on  her  own  authority — The 
wiser  course  is  to  loosen  it — This  is  the  mother's 
opportunity  to  widen  her  own  interests — Need  for 
very  gradual  enlarging  of  the  girl's  responsibility 
in  the  home — Some  details:  table  decorations; 
Sunday  supper;  marketing — Possible  benefit  of 
this  change  to  all  the  family. 

XIII.  MODERN  PARENTS  AND  THE  SCHOOLS       .      .      .    146 
More  need  than  formerly  of  cooperation  between 
home  and  school — Character  building  now  under- 
taken at  school  as  well  as  at  home — Very  little  for 
children   to   do  in  modern   home — Corresponding 
need  for  more  varieties  of  activity  in  the  school — 
Vocational  education — Trade  schools — All-around 
schools. 

XIV.  AN  OUTDOOR  SCHOOL 160 

Communized  effort  a  growing  phenomenon  not  a 
theory — Effect  of  this  on  children — Description  of 

an  existing  school  which  surrounds  children  with 


CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

natural  conditions — Children  feel  that  such  a 
school  is  more  homelike  than  the  houses  where 
they  live  with  their  parents — Not  an  effort  to  re- 
vive processes  now  obsolete — Thoroughly  modern 
in  spirit  but  adapted  to  children — Simplicity  and 
low  cost  of  such  a  school — All  activities  closely 
related  to  actual  life — Even  academic  work  im- 
proves under  natural  conditions. 

XV.  PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS 183 

Need  for  parents'  cooperation  in  modern  school — 
Difficulties  not  insuperable — Possibilities  of  lunch- 
room as  an  opening  for  mothers — Girls  separated 
into  small  manageable  groups — Simple  kitchen  ar- 
rangements in  school  halls — Girls  share  responsi- 
bility for  catering — The  "Crete  Idea" — The  sewing- 
room — Shows,  pageants  and  entertainments — How 
about  the  boys? — Athletics  the  best  opening — Or- 
ganization   of    athletic   club — Office   of    honorary 
member — Games   that  all   the   school  can  play — 
Securing  a  playground  and  improving  it — Raising 
money — Borrowing — Don't  expect  too  much! 

XVI.  NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  NEW  TOWNS        .      .      .      .215 
Communities   in   warm   climates   likely  to   adopt 
open-air  schools — Cost  of  outdoor  schools  lower 
than  older  type — Need  for  space  as  well  as  build- 
ings— Schools   should  be   organized   to   keep   the 
children  in  small  groups — Dangers  of  large  masses 

— Some  objections  to  the  consolidated  school — The 
"school  team" — Possibilities  of  the  rural  school. 

XVII.  POSTSCRIPT 235 

Details  of  the  undertaking  should  not  daunt  par- 
ent— Wise  selection  among  suggestions  given — 
Parent  can  not  shift  responsibility  for  children's 
welfare—Honest  acceptance  of  responsibility  the 
greatest  joy  in  life. 

INDEX  239 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  education  in  the 
home  as  well  as  in  the  school  is  changing  rapidly  in 
every  section  of  our  country.  Wherever  one  goes 
he  hears  teachers,  parents  and  students  of  social 
welfare  discussing  educational  reforms.  Multitudes 
of  suggestions  are  being  constantly  offered  looking 
toward  the  modification  of  courses  of  study,  meth- 
ods of  teaching  and  the  organization  and  manage- 
ment of  schools.  There  is  evidently  little,  if  any- 
thing, concerning  educational  procedure  which  is 
definitely  settled. 

What  is  the  cause  of  this  unrest  in  the  educational 
world?  Is  it  not  that  such  profound  changes  are 
taking  place  in  our  social,  economic  and  industrial 
life  that  every  one  who  studies  the  matter  realizes 
that  the  training  of  the  home  and  the  school  must  be 
modified  or  children  will  not  be  equipped  for  the 
requirements  of  every-day  life?  One  can  make  ob- 
servations relating  to  this  matter  in  some  of  the 
older  countries.  The  schools  have  little  or  no  con- 
nection with  the  actual  life  of  the  people  among 
whom  they  exist.  They  are  set  apart  from  the  cur- 
rent of  things,  and  they  run  along  on  a  program 
worked  out  hundreds  of  years  ago  without  regard 
to  present-day  needs.  But  happily  in  our  own  coun- 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

try  educational  agencies  are  so  intimately  in  touch 
with  all  phases  of  our  life  that  they  respond  almost 
immediately  and  very  actively  to  new  social,  eco- 
nomic and  industrial  conditions. 

In  her  Self-Reliance  Mrs.  Fisher  has  traced  in  a 
concrete  and  interesting  way  the  changes  in  our 
social  organization  and  activities  which  have  taken 
place  recently,  which  are  continuing  actively  at 
the  present  moment,  and  which  have  already  pro- 
foundly affected  home  and  school  life.  She  has 
shown  that  one  effect  of  modern  industrial  develop- 
ments in  particular  has  been  to  deprive  children 
of  experiences  that  are  essential  in  order  to  make 
them  resourceful  and  self-reliant.  A  child,  brought 
up  in  a  town  or  city,  is  likely  to  have  but  very 
little  training  which  will  develop  in  him  a  keen 
sense  of  responsibility,  and  skill  in  solving  original 
problems.  Mrs.  Fisher  dwells  especially  on  the  mod- 
ern tendency  toward  concentration  of  educational 
activities,  which  is  resulting  in  the  building  of  im- 
mense schools,  in  which  the  individual  child  is  not 
likely  to  have  much  experience  in  performing  tasks 
requiring  originality  and  initiative.  Add  to  this  the 
fact  that  the  modern  home  gives  the  child  practi- 
cally no  training  in  taking  responsibility  in  solving 
problems,  and  it  can  be  seen  that  we  confront  a  seri- 
ous situation.  Unless  we  can  resist  these  tendencies 
and  plan  deliberately  to  have  children  learn  to  take 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

responsibility  and  to  be  self-helpful,  we  shall  speed- 
ily, Mrs.  Fisher  thinks,  come  upon  evil  days  in  this 
country,  as  older  peoples  have  done  before  us. 

The  mission  of  Self -Reliance  is  to  lead  parents 
and  teachers  to  recognize  our  new  problems  and  to 
devise  ways  and  means  of  solving  them.  The  book 
is  full  of  practical  suggestions  for  educating  chil- 
dren to  be  self-reliant  and  competent  in  the  every- 
day situations  of  life.  The  author  has  been  a 
careful  student  of  educational  principles  and  prac- 
tise at  home  and  abroad;  she  has  studied  life  and 
education  in  the  great  cities,  and  she  is  now  putting 
her  views  of  training  the  young  into  practise  in  her 
country  home.  Thus  her  views  and  her  suggestions 
are  based  on  theoretical  and  concrete  studies,  as  well 
as  on  her  every-day  experience.  It  may  be  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  in  a  book  like  this  the  author 
has  not  thought  it  desirable  to  go  exhaustively  into 
the  discussion  of  the  theoretical  principles  underly- 
ing her  practical  suggestions. 

The  author  feels  that  modern  educational  methods 
are  making  mere  imitators  of  children.  She  main- 
tains that  a  great  school  mechanism  tends  to  inhibit 
any  expression  of  a  child's  originality,  resourceful- 
ness and  self-reliance.  So  she  advocates  small 
schools  in  which  each  pupil  will  be  a  more  or  less 
important  and  individual  factor.  She  believes  that 
the  rural  school  is  better  adapted  to  develop  re- 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 


sponsibility  in  children  than  is  the  large  consolidated 
school ;  but  she  makes  it  very  clear  that  the  isolated 
district  school,  as  it  now  exists  in  most  places,  is  not 
well  equipped  to  train  children  for  a  self-reliant  and 
responsible  life.  Teachers  will  read  with  interest 
the  author's  suggestions  for  vitalizing  the  small, 
independent  country  school.  Some  readers  may 
think  the  consolidated  school  can  accomplish  all 
the  author  advocates  in  the  training  of  children. 
Such  readers  may  feel  that  we  have  been  making 
actual  progress  by  eliminating  the  poorly-equipped, 
one-room  school,  and  establishing  in  its  place  a 
graded  and  well-equipped  central  school. 

The  editor  believes  it  will  be  of  interest  and  profit 
for  all  readers  to  gain  Mrs.  Fisher's  point  of  view. 
It  will  certainly  be  helpful  to  read  what  she  has  to 
say  regarding  the  danger  of  destroying  resourceful- 
ness in  our  highly-organized  and  complicated  school 
systems.  Even  if  the  modern  tendency  to  consolida- 
tion and  concentration  continues  it  will  be  well  for 
all  parents,  teachers  and  school  officers  to  keep  con- 
stantly in  mind  the  evils  that  are  likely  to  flow  from 
such  consolidation,  in  order  that  they  may  be  mini- 
mized or  completely  eliminated. 

The  editor  may  without  impropriety  quote  a  few 
sentences  from  one  of  Mrs.  Fisher's  private  letters 
relating  to  her  book.  She  says :  "I  realize  that  there 
is  some  perhaps  heretical  and  possibly  unsound  mat- 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 


ter  in  the  chapters  on  schools,  and  I  would  not  in  the 
least  mind  if,  in  your  introduction,  you  should  make 
a  disclaimer  of  any  responsibility  for  my  irregular 
views.  They  must  at  least,  I  think,  be  stimulating  to 
people  who  are  thinking  about  schools.  I  have  tried 
them  out  on  various  New  England  audiences,  and 
have  always  found  that  they  awakened  a  very  lively 
interest.  I  am  really  genuinely  alarmed  about  the 
results  (twenty-five  years  from  now)  if  we  go  on 
massing  children  in  hordes,  and  I  do  not  see  that  it 
can  do  harm  to  sound  a  warning  note." 

In  the  spirit  of  this  expression  the  editor  permits 
the  author's  "perhaps  heretical  and  possibly  unsound 
matter  in  the  chapters  on  schools"  to  pass  exactly  as 
she  has  presented  it. 

M.  V.  O'SHEA. 

The  University  of  Wisconsin. 


SELF-RELIANCE 


SELF-RELIANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

SOME  GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

1ONCE  knew  a  village  cobbler  who  maintained 
that  all  the  troubles  of  mankind  originate  in 
badly  fitting  shoes.  No  amount  of  ridicule  or  criti- 
cism could  shake  his  conviction  that  the  universe 
centered  in  his  trade.  When  some  scoffer  inquired, 
"Do  you  expect  me  to  believe  that  if  Benedict 
Arnold  had  worn  the  right  kind  of  shoes  he'd  not 
have  been  a  traitor?"  the  old  shoemaker  stuck  to 
his  guns.  "He'd  have  been  a  better  man,  let  me 
tell  you.  He'd  have  been  a  better  man,  and  nobody 
knows  how  far  that  might  have  gone." 

As  I  begin  a  book  on  self-reliance  and  responsi- 
bility in  child  life,  I  force  myself  to  remember  that 
naively  bumptious  shoemaker,  but  I  find  that  I  am 
not  sufficiently  warned  by  his  example.  I  bring  to 
my  mind  the  fact  that  there  are  other  problems  in 
the  world :  the  problem  of  the  unemployed,  of  capi- 
tal and  labor,  of  the  transportation  of  farm  produce 
to  market.  But  I  find  deep  in  my  heart,  untouched 

1 


SELF-RELIANCE 

y  this  attempt  to  be  reasonable,  the  profound  con- 
viction that  most  questions  of  modern  life  would  be 
answered  if  we  could  but  solve  the  knotty  problem 
of  how  best  to  teach  children  to  stand  on  their  own 
feet,  to  shoulder  the  responsibility  for  their  own 
actions,  to  accept  with  enlightened  willingness  their 
fair  share  in  the  world's  work. 

Therefore,  fortified  by  the  reflection  that  the 
author's  belief  in  its  necessity  is  the  only  possible 
excuse  for  adding  even  the  smallest  volume  to  the 
great  multitude  of  books,  I  am  going  to  wrrite  a 
book  for  parents  on  self-reliance  and  responsibility. 
There  will  be  nothing  in  it  that  thoughtful  parents 
do  not  know  already,  for  I  am  a  parent  myself,  and 
no  educational  expert ;  but  it  may  be  of  value  to  have 
all  written  out  and  set  down  in  a  book  some  things 
we  all  know,  but  are  very  apt  to  forget  in  the  be- 
wilderment and  fatigue  and  even  disheartenment 
which  at  times  inevitably  confuse  a  parent's  mind. 

As  to  the  heat  of  my  conviction  about  the  im- 
mense importance  of  teaching  responsibility  and 
self-reliance,  I  shall  trust  to  the  reader's  good  sense, 
and  to  the  competition  of  advocates  of  other  social 
panaceas  to  give  my  project  its  fitting  relative  value. 

The  first  statement  to  be  made  after  this  declara- 
tion of  the  importance  of  teaching  self-reliance  and 
responsibility  is  a  frank  admission  of  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  the  undertaking  in  modern  conditions. 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  3 

The  whole  trend  of  American  life  is  away  from  the 
old,  plainly  visible,  individual  responsibility.  Of 
course  to  a  person  of  clear  vision,  individual  re- 
sponsibility of  a  more  subtle  sort  is  as  much  needed 
as  ever  in  these  times  of  cooperative  action.  But 
it  is  apparent  that  to  muddle-headed  people,  and  to 
unformed  minds  like  children's  minds,  the  fact  that 
so  often  in  modern  America  one  may  press  a  but- 
ton and  be  served,  seems  to  relieve  one  of  any  neces- 
sity for  responsibility  about  what  goes  on  behind 
the  button.  It  is  also  apparent  that  for  the  naturally 
indolent  mass  of  humanity,  and  for  children  with  no 
experience  of  life,  there  is  a  great  danger  of  coming 
to  rely  so  entirely  on  the  electric  button  and  its 
slaves  that  the  wheels  of  initiative  will  be  broken,  or 
at  least  become  rusty  from  long  disuse. 

Children,  with  their  unthinking  acceptance  of  the 
world  as  they  find  it,  need  particularly  to  be  aroused 
from  the  mental  attitude  of  passivity  engendered  by 
the  complications  and  conveniences  of  modern  life. ; 
It  is  no  longer  necessary  for  the  growing  boys  of 
the  family  to  carry  water  by  pails  ful  in  from  the 
well,  and  it  would  be  foolish  to  try  to  cultivate  their 
strength  and  self-reliance  by  forcing  them  back  into 
that  archaic,  if  very  invigorating  practise.  But  they 
need  not  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  grow  up  into 
adolescence  with  the  baby's  feeling  that  water  comes 
out  of  the  pipes  in  the  bathroom  as  inevitably  a* 


4  SELF-RELIANCE 

water  falls  from  the  clouds  in  the  sky.  It  takes  a 
great  deal  more  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  parents 
than  it  used  to,  to  give  their  children  the  tonic 
knowledge  of  the  axiom  that  effort  precedes  enjoy- 
ment, since  in  many  cases  it  is  no  longer  their  own 
effort  which  precedes  their  own  enjoyment.  A  spe- 
cialist (the  plumber)  taking  advantage  of  the  tabu- 
lated experience  and  intelligence  of  others,  came 
into  the  child's  home,  and  by  a  continuous  effort  of 
some  days,  took  away  forever  the  necessity  for  any 
effort  on  any  one's  part  beyond  turning  a  faucet  on 
and  off.  The  modern  parent  must  realize  thor- 
oughly how  far-reaching  that  sort  of  process  is,  and 
how  ever-present  in  all  phases  of  the  children's  life. 
If  the  fathers  and  mothers  wish  to  replace  the  older 
direct  contact  with  necessities,  by  activities  tending 
as  surely  to  self-reliance,  they  must  bestir  them- 
selves and  find  new  formulas  and  new  devices.  It 
will  not  do  either  to  try  to  use  the  old  ones  now  be- 
come as  anachronistic  as  feudal  forms,  or  simply  to 
let  the  matter  go.  Children  are  thoroughly  human 
and  if  all  their  needs  are  provided  for,  with  little 
effort  on  their  parts  they  fall  into  habits  of  inertia 
and  moral  flabbiness  as  surely  as  their  elders  do  un- 
der similar  conditions.  What  we  parents  need  to 
realize  is  that  ordinary  modern  conditions  more  and 
more  tend  to  put  children  in  a  passive,  receptive 
mental  attitude,  and  not  in  an  active  and  masterful 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  5 

one;  and  further  that  we  can  not  better  this  condi- 
tion without  taking  a  great  deal  of  very  intelligent 
thought. 

Parents  must  be  sure  in  the  first  place  what  they 
want  to  do;  whether  or  not  they  really  prefer  to  in- 
culcate resourcefulness  and  initiative  in  their  chil- 
dren, or  to  live  through  the  childhood  of  their  sons 
and  daughters  with  as  little  trouble  as  possible.  For 
it  is  not  only  difficult,  under  modern  conditions,  to 
stimulate  self-reliance  and  initiative,  but  once  stim- 
ulated these  qualities  are  not  conducive  to  the  quiet 
stagnation  in  the  home  which  adults  (active  outside 
of  it)  consider  the  desideratum  of  home  life.  Fur- 
thermore, there  is  the  instinctive  repugnance  felt  by 
many  parents  to  what  they  consider  a  premature 
initiation  of  children  into  adult  activities.  As  long 
as  adult  activities  consisted  mainly  of  paring  pota- 
toes and  baking  bread  and  feeding  cattle  and  mak- 
ing hay,  nobody  dreamed  that  there  was  anything 
unnatural  or  precocious  in  children  who  were  ably 
doing  their  share  of  it.  But  now  that  corresponding 
adult  activities  include  buying  railroad  tickets,  using 
a  time-table,  ordering  meals  in  hotels,  sending  pack- 
ages by  parcels-post  and  sending  telegrams,  we  feel 
that  we  do  not  want  our  boys  and  girls  to  be  made 
"little  old  men  and  women"  by  too  great  assurance 
in  handling  these  modern  processes.  We  rather  dis- 
like a  boy  of  sixteen  practised  enough  in  the  ways 


6  SELF-RELIANCE 

of  the  world  to  go  easily  and  with  self-confidence 
through  the  various  details  which  precede  establish- 
ing himself  in  a  hotel.  It  savors  of  over-sophistica- 
tion to  us.  We  take  a  sentimental  pleasure  in  seeing 
him  blushing  and  abashed  before  the  hotel-clerk, 
and  flurried  by  the  porter,  although  three  genera- 
tions ago  we  would  have  been  very  impatient  of  any 
inability  of  his  to  drive  the  family  horse  to  town  on 
a  marketing  expedition.  What  is  hard  to  remember 
is  that  in  most  cases,  he  no  longer  needs  to  have  ex- 
perience in  driving  the  family  horse,  nor  instruction 
in  building  stove-fires.  If  he  is  to  avoid  awkward 
bungling  and  in  many  cases  serious  mistakes  in  run- 
ning his  life,  he  needs  to  be  taught  how  rightly  and 
aptly  to  use  modern  tools :  precisely  how  to  order  a 
room  at  a  hotel,  how  to  buy  his  clothes,  how  to  fee 
a  porter,  how  to  buy  a  theater-ticket,  how  to  make 
an  appointment  with  the  dentist,  all  with  the  self- 
confident  faith  in  himself  which  will  preserve  him 
from  being  helpless  before  those  who  are  always 
ready  to  prey  on  helpless  uncertainty  in  whatever 
form  it  manifest  itself. 

I  do  not  mean  that  all  training  for  children  must 
be  concentrated  on  the  tasks  they  will  have  to  per- 
form when  grown  up.  Many  things  not  in  them- 
selves particularly  valuable  give  the  greatest  help 
to  faculties  which  are  essential  to  later  development. 
Adults  seldom  have  to  use  carpenter's  tools,  and  yet 


GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  7 

the  training  a  boy  gets  in  a  workshop,  the  ability  to 
coordinate  eye  and  hand  which  he  learns  there,  will 
help  him  whatever  the  vocation  of  his  maturity  may 
be.  Few  adults  have  any  practical  concern  with  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  different  varieties  of  birds, 
or  knowing  a  maple  from  an  oak,  yet  the  habit  of 
close  observation  and  assigning  facts  to  their  proper 
categories  is  an  invaluable  one.  It  is  well  that  chil- 
dren should  be  trained  in  every  pursuit  that  may 
tend  to  develop  alertness  and  accuracy,  whether  or 
not  the  pursuit  is  in  itself  likely  to  have  permanent 
value ;  but  it  is  a  pity  that  even  the  children  who  are 
lucky  enough  to  have  mind  and  character-training 
planned  for  them  outside  the  schoolroom,  should 
have  their  attention  concentrated  as  it  generally  is 
on  handcrafts  and  nature  study,  and  on  nothing 
else.  There  are  so  many  other  pursuits  just  as  stim- 
ulating to  mental  processes,  which  they  have  to  mas- 
ter some  day  and  which — if  taken  up  early  under 
suitable  supervision,  are  learned  with  so  much  less 
pain! 

We  need  to  remember  that  there  is  no  essential 
virtue  in  the  old-fashioned  home  activities,  now  su- 
perseded :  the  splitting  of  kindling,  the  shoveling  of 
snow,  the  stoking  of  stoves,  the  weeding  of  gar- 
dens. They  were  means  to  an  end  in  the  child's 
growth.  Through  them  he  learned  some  of  the 
basic  facts  of  life,  acquired  the  splendid  habits  of 


8  SELF-RELIANCE 

sturdy  self-help.  But  if  it  is  no  longer  possible  to 
use  those  means,  we  must  try  to  find  in  the  modern 
world  the  activities  which  correspond  to  them.  This 
is  so  extremely  difficult  that  those  parents  who  have 
continued  to  live  somewhat  under  the  old  regime  are 
to  be  congratulated  on  the  ease  of  their  task.  Activ- 
ities fit  for  child-training  are  ready  to  their  hands, 
worn  and  polished  and  available  with  the  use  of  past 
generations.  But  it  is  by  no  means  sure  that  their 
results  will  be  any  better  than  those  attained  by  an 
intelligent  and  resourceful  manipulation  of  modern 
expedients.  The  boy  who  has,  as  his  daily  task,  the 
feeding  of  the  poultry  yard,  learns  something  about 
responsibility;  but  does  he  learn  any  more  than  the 
boy  who  has  as  his  responsibility  to  see  to  the 
monthly  payment  of  certain  of  the  family  bills?  It 
is  even  possible  that  the  latter  boy  may  have  the  start 
of  the  first  when  they  both  begin  modern  adult  life, 
since  more  grown-ups  need  the  habit  of  regular  at- 
tention to  their  accounts  than  the  habit  of  regularly 
feeding  chickens.  But  this  last  distinction  is  perhaps 
fanciful;  one  form  of  activity  has  little  to  recom- 
mend it  above  another:  it  is  the  habit  of  regular 
responsibility  for  any  recurring  task  that  is  the 
essential. 

Parents  who  analyze  the  situation  down  to  the 
bottom,  especially  to  the  bottom  of  their  own  hearts, 
are  apt  to  feel  that  a  great  deal  of  the  difficulty  in 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  9 

teaching  self-reliance  to  modern  children  comes 
more  from  a  common  mental  attitude  than  from 
material  conditions.  Adults  as  well  as  children 
have  their  problem  of  insufficient  responsibility.  In 
an  industrial  society,  occupied  for  the  most  part  to 
the  top  of  its  bent  in  producing  objects,  one  of  the 
natural  impulses  of  the  human  heart  tends  to  grow 
to  unhealthy  and  bloated  proportions.  This  impulse 
is  the  desire  for  material  possessions.  There  are  so 
many  things  to  be  possessed  nowadays,  all  our  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  efficiently  run  factories  are 
turning  out  so  many  millions  of  purchasable  articles 
that  ordinary  humanity,  unwarned  and  unprepared, 
is  fairly  swamped  under  the  facility  with  which  the 
covetous  instinct  for  possession  may  be  gratified. 
Many  and  many  a  human  life  is  lived  out  without 
any  other  activity  than  to  possess  for  the  sake  of 
possessing.  The  immense  variety  of  the  things  pos- 
sessed blinds  us  to  their  deadening  inner  uniformity 
— houses,  jewels,  horses,  automobiles,  social  posi- 
tion, handsome  wives,  land,  buildings — it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  we  are  dazzled  into  thinking  that  a 
life's  activity  might  very  well  consist  in  acquiring 
more  and  yet  more.  And  it  is  not  in  the  least  sur- 
prising that  children,  unless  especially  provided  with 
opportunities  to  learn  the  joys  of  creative  effort, 
should  become  thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  er- 
ror of  their  elders :  should  feel  that  the  success  and 


10  SELF-RELIANCE 

happiness  of  a  life  depends  upon  the  multitude  of 
objects  possessed  rather  than  in  well-regulated  activ- 
ity and  self-expression.  There  can  be  little  initia- 
tive or  self-reliance  inculcated  if  the  inner  ideal  is 
of  passive  and  effortless  ownership.  From  their 
earliest  years,  modern  children  need  to  be  set  in 
conditions  in  which  they  may  learn  for  themselves 
that  lasting  satisfaction  comes  from  a  wise  employ- 
ment of  their  own  energies  and  capacities,  and  not 
from  a  passive  ownership  of  things. 


CHAPTER  II 

SELF-HELP   IN    EARLY    CHILDHOOD 

MOST  individuals  feel  hopelessly  that  they  can 
accomplish  little  for  the  immediate  present 
by  any  attempt  to  modify  an  existing  tradition,  since 
traditions  are  traditionally  so  long  in  the  making- 
over.  And  for  such  moments  of  depression,  it  is 
well  for  us  to  remember  that  there  is,  after  all,  an 
infinite  deal  which  in  spite  of  tradition  can  be  done 
in  each  individual  home,  even  in  the  much  depre- 
cated modern  home.  The  children  are  there  many 
hours  of  the  day,  even  modern  children,  and  the 
little  children  are  there  every  hour  of  the  day. 

So  while  we  are  waiting  for  the  longed-for 
change  in  the  school  system,  while  we  are  kneading 
the  fermenting  dough  of  cooperative  mass  educa- 
tion, and  while  we  are  trying  to  change  the  Ameri- 
can tradition  about  the  joys  of  property-holding,  we 
can  be  turning  our  wits  each  to  his  own  home,  to  his 
own  children,  to  the  problem  of  setting  his  own 
house  in  order.  If  there  is  any  sense  to  be  made  out 
of  modern  home  conditions,  we  alone  can  make  it. 
And  since  it  is  always  best  and  simplest  to  begin  at 
the  beginning  of  anything,  it  is  wise  to  see  how 

11 


12  SELF-RELIANCE 

early  in  any  human  life  the  habit  of  self-dependence 
can  be  begun.  In  early  childhood,  at  least  we  are 
not  baffled  by  the  organization  of  society,  and  we 
can  not  lay  the  blame  on  industrialism  if  our  four- 
and  five-year-olds  have  the  habit,  when  confronted 
with  an  obstacle,  of  asking  somebody  to  remove  it 
for  them. 

I  am  going  to  set  down  here  a  little  incident 
which  came  under  my  observation  lately,  and  which 
will  serve  as  the  text  of  this  chapter.  I  sat  in 
the  living-room  of  a  neighbor's  house,  chatting, 
and  watching  an  energetic  baby  of  twenty  months 
playing  with  a  rubber  ball.  Presently,  "Ball  all 
gone,"  announced  the  little  boy,  lying  flat  on  his 
stomach  and  reaching  under  the  piano  with  one  ab- 
surdly inadequate  fat  little  arm. 

"All  right,  darling,"  said  the  busy  mother  lov- 
ingly, dropping  her  sewing  to  reach  under  and  get  it 
for  him. 

"Why  don't  you  give  him  a  stick  and  show  him 
how  to  poke  it  out  for  himself?"  suggested  the  tool- 
using  father  from  his  chair. 

"Oh,  he's  too  little.  He  wouldn't  understand; 
he  couldn't  do  it ;  a  baby  like  that,"  said  the  mother 
fondly. 

"I  bet  he  could,"  replied  the  father.  "Here, 
Buster,  let  father  show  you  a  trick." 

He  sat  down  on  the  floor  with  a  cane,  and  mak- 


EARLY    CHILDHOOD  13 

ing  the  much-interested  baby  stoop  his  head  to  the 
floor,  till  he  could  see  just  what  happened  under  the 
piano,  he  knocked  the  ball  out  within  reach.  The 
delighted  baby  ran  squealing  to  pick  it  up,  and 
promptly  threw  it  back  under  the  piano. 

"Oh,  naughty  boy !"  said  the  mother  in  gentle  re- 
proach, "when  poor  papa  has  just  got  it  out  for 
you!" 

"Just  watch  that  kid !"  said  the  father,  pointing  to 
the  prostrate  form  of  the  baby.  Grunting  with  de- 
termination, the  little  boy  wielded  the  cane  with 
unspeakable  clumsiness.  But  he  kept  at  it,  and 
finally,  as  he  poked  and  shoved  and  prodded,  one  of 
his  wild  strokes  hit  the  ball  and  rolled  it  out  on  the 
floor.  His  pride  and  pleasure  were  beyond  words 
to  describe.  He  beamed,  he  shone,  he  laughed 
aloud.  His  eyes  were  like  stars.  My  heart  melted 
to  see  him. 

The  father  triumphed,  "Smart  kid,  what?" 

But  what  did  the  baby  do  next?  He  threw  the 
ball  back  under  the  piano.  His  mother  triumphed 
now!  "There,  you  see,"  she  said;  "he  didn't  take 
in  the  sense  of  what  you  were  doing  at  all!  He's 
just  a  baby !" 

The  father,  being  tool-using  but  no  psychologist, 
retreated  somewhat  crestfallen  to  his  chair,  and  the 
chat  went  on  in  its  usual  channels.  But  my  thoughts 
widened  and  expanded  to  a  new  amplitude  as  I 


14  SELF-RELIANCE 

patched  the  eager  little  creature,  repeating  over  and 
over  the  exercise  which  had  at  a  stroke  advanced 
him  from  the  rank  of  fumbling  pawing  animal,  to 
be  blood-brother  to  Archimedes.  Archimedes'  en- 
thusiasm over  his  lever  has  come  echoing  down  the 
ages;  but  I  doubt  if  it  was  any  more  sincere  or 
heartfelt  than  the  wordless  joy  of  that  minute  speci- 
men of  humanity  at  bursting  forever  a  limitation 
which  had  hampered  him. 

Three  days  later  when  he  was  spending  an  hour 
with  me,  I  saw  him  reach  in  vain  for  a  block  that 
had  been  pushed  into  a  far  corner  of  a  shelf,  and  I 
waited  with  a  real  thrill  of  interest  to  see  if  he 
would  call  on  me  to  help  him.  No,  the  idea  did  not 
even  occur  to  him.  He  looked  about  alertly,  and 
spying  the  poker,  trotted  over  to  the  hearth,  his  lit- 
tle baby  face  serene  with  the  blessed  tranquillity 
which  comes  only  from  assured  competence.  He 
picked  up  the  poker,  staggered  for  a  moment  under 
the  unexpected  weight  of  the  metal,  adjusted  him- 
self quickly  to  it,  and  bore  it  slowly  back  to  the 
shelf.  As  he  fumblingly  fished  for  the  block  and 
finally  knocked  it  out  to  the  front  of  the  shelf  where 
he  could  reach  it,  I  was  silently  exulting  in  him  and 
saying  proudly  to  myself,  "Oh,  you  little  human 
being!  You  little  tool-using  man-child!" 

It  can  be  imagined  with  what  exasperation  I  cried 
out  upon  an  elderly  relative  of  mine  who,  looking 


EARLY   CHILDHOOD  15 

up  from  her  book  and  seeing  a  child  under  two 
years  with  a  poker,  swooped  down  upon  him  and 
tore  it  from  his  hand. 

"Good  gracious,  auntie!  Why  in  the  world  did 
you  do  that !"  I  exclaimed,  outraged  at  her  meaning- 
less tyranny. 

She  faced  me  with  stupefaction.  "Let  a  baby 
play  with  a  poker !"  she  cried. 

"Why  not?"  I  challenged  her,  although  I  rea- 
lized that  we  were  speaking  different  languages. 

She  looked  as  though  the  very  last  extremity  of 
modern  folly  had  been  reached!  "Why,  I  never 
heard  of  such  a  thing  in  my  life."  She  cried  out: 
"A  child  of  that  age  to  have  a  poker!  Why,  hell 
break  the  windows  with  it!"  She  made  this  state- 
ment with  absolute  certainty,  as  though  she  had 
seen  in  her  day  hundreds  of  babies  smashing  win- 
dow-panes with  pokers.  "Besides,"  she  added  con- 
clusively, as  she  put  the  offending  bit  of  iron  in 
place,  "it  gets  his  hands  dirty !" 

I  did  not  attempt  to  reason  with  her,  having  had 
some  experience  in  reasoning  with  elderly  people 
whose  fixed  conviction  is  that  children  exist  only  to 
damage  the  property  of  their  elders.  I  knew  that 
nothing  I  now  could  say  would  prevent  her  from 
reporting  that  I  advocated  letting  babies  smash  win- 
dows as  a  daily  recreation.  I  let  that  go  as  so  many 
other  similar  misconceptions  go;  but  I  resolved  to 


16  SELF-RELIANCE 

make  one  of  the  first  chapters  of  this  book  a  plea  for 
little,  little  children.  People  who  have  not  had  the 
honor  of  being  personally  acquainted  with  a  little 
child  may  feel  as  they  read  the  pages  following  that 
they  are  being  required  to  look  through  a  magnify- 
ing glass  at  events  too  small  to  be  seen  with  the 
naked  eye,  and  hence  negligible  in  the  rough-and- 
ready  economy  of  the  real  world.  But  remember- 
ing the  fascinated,  attentive  stare  of  the  trained  en- 
tomologist on  his  beetles,  let  us  concede  that  the 
actions  of  a  human  being  even  of  fifteen  months  of 
age,  may  not  be  without  significance  to  a  sympa- 
thetic eye. 

The  first  axiom  to  bear  in  mind  is  one  that  needs 
to  be  repeated  over  and  over  at  all  stages  of  a  child's 
development,  but  never  more  than  when  his  speech 
is  still  so  imperfect  that  he  can  not  explain  himself. 
"Find  out  what  the  child's  purpose  is."  Ten  to  one 
his  intention  is  harmless,  if  not  entirely  praise- 
worthy. It  is  only  the  means  he  takes  to  accomplish 
his  laudable  end  that  seem  malicious  or  destruc- 
tive. My  bewildered  little  friend  of  twenty  months 
had  no  more  intention  of  smashing  the  windows 
with  his  poker  than  my  aunt  has  when  she  takes  it 
up  to  poke  the  fire;  but  with  a  vocabulary  of  about 
sixty  nouns  and  perhaps  ten  verbs,  he  could  scarcely 
be  expected  to  explain  to  her  the  obstacle  that 
confronted  him  and  the  mechanical  ingenuity  with 


EARLY   CHILDHOOD  17 

which  he  had  overcome  it.  He  could  only  stare,  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  twitching,  the  tears  in  his  eyes. 
My  aunt  was  under  the  impression  that  she  had 
safeguarded  our  priceless  window-panes  by  her 
prompt  action.  In  reality  her  achievement  was  far 
different.  She  had  succeeded  in  sowing  in  a  child's 
mind  the  first  seed  of  distrust  of  adults,  a  distrust 
that  would  in  all  probability  grow  into  the  habit 
of  concealing  from  adults  all  infantile  projects,  a 
habit  that  is  designated  by  adults  as  sly  deceitful- 
ness. 

If  any  one  in  charge  of  little  children  can  acquire 
the  habit  of  invariable  and  disinterested  inquiry 
into  the  intentions  of  the  small  people  the  rest  al- 
most follows  of  itself.  As  a  rule  the  intentions  are 
good,  and  all  that  remains  to  be  done  is  to  help 
the  tots  carry  them  out  in  a  way  that  will  not  be 
too  troublesome  to  the  family. 

For  the  most  part,  in  early  childhood,  the  new 
member  of  the  family  is  busily  engaged  in  learning 
the  ropes,  in  getting  his  sea-legs  under  him,  in  mak- 
ing himself  master  of  his  immediate  surroundings, 
and  his  chief  guide  is  imitation  of  his  elders.  One 
of  the  most  beneficent  results  of  the  dramatically 
sudden  spread  of  Doctor  Montessori's  ideas  about 
little  children,  is  a  new  willingness  on  the  part  of 
parents  to  allow  their  babies  time  to  experiment 
with  certain  frequently  recurring  processes  of  their 


18  SELF-RELIANCE 

daily  life.  Every  mother  nowadays  makes  an  effort 
to  be  patient  when  the  little  fingers  try  clumsily  to 
insert  buttons  in  button-holes,  and  to  tie  strings. 
Every  magazine-reading  mother  nowadays  knows 
that  she  ought  not  to  hurry  these  processes,  that  it 
is  better  for  the  little  child  to  take  an  hour  to  put  on 
his  own  shoes  than  for  his  mother  to  whisk  them  on 
for  him  in  thirty  seconds.  Furthermore,  having 
read  of  the  little  washstands  and  bowls  in  Mon- 
tessori  schools,  the  low  hooks  for  the  children's 
clothes,  the  little  chairs  and  tables,  most  American 
homes  make  an  effort  to  provide  a  similar  corner  of 
the  house  where  the  little  folks  may  feel  themselves 
at  home  and  not  visiting  a  race  of  giants.  For  all 
this,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  we  have  to  thank  the 
great  Italian  educator.  But  not  knowing  American 
homes  or  (in  the  first  place)  writing  for  them,  she 
did  not  go  on  and  set  forth  in  detail  the  further  ap- 
plication of  her  theories  under  the  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  American  home  life;  and  we  have  not 
shown  ourselves  notably  inventive  in  doing  this  for 
ourselves. 

As  soon  as  the  average  normal  child  emerges 
from  babyhood,  say  at  fourteen  or  fifteen  months, 
his  instinct  for  self-help  emerges  as  clearly,  with  as 
much  emphasis,  as  his  instinct  for  getting  his  own 
way.  And  curiously  enough  he  is  usually  forced  to 
fight  for  the  one  as  strenuously  as  for  the  other.  If 


EARLY   CHILDHOOD  19 

you  will  spend  one  day  in  watching  a  healthy  child 
of  eighteen  or  twenty  months,  you  will  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  is  straining  every  nerve  to  learn 
how  to  "do  for  himself"  and  his  mother  is  straining 
every  nerve  to  prevent  him,  except  in  certain  ways, 
now  stereotyped.  Nowadays,  remembering  the  fa- 
mous Montessori  buttoning- frames,  she  usually  lets 
her  little  son  try  to  button  his  own  little  coat;  but 
she  does  not  teach  him  how  to  turn  the  water- faucet 
and  hold  a  cup  to  satisfy  his  interminably  recurring 
baby  thirst.  With  cherishing  care  she  springs  to 
serve  him  a  dozen  times  a  day,  when  almost  any 
child  of  a  year  and  a  half  can  learn  in  five  minutes 
how  to  do  it  for  himself.  He  is  better  off  than  most 
young  people  of  his  age  if  his  mother  does  not  hold 
the  cup  to  his  lips  as  though  he  were  a  bedridden 
invalid.  "He  gets  his  dress  so  wet  in  front,"  she 
says.  But  to  obviate  that  difficulty  she  should  not 
now  be  holding  the  cup  for  him;  she  should,  she 
months  before,  -when  he  was  a  year  old,  have  made 
him  a  little  oil-cloth  apron,  and  setting  his  high- 
chair  in  front  of  the  bathroom  wash-bowl,  or  the 
kitchen  sink,  have  let  him  pour  water  from  one 
cup  to  another.)  She  would  have  found  that  the 
little  scrap  of  humanity,  too  young  to  speak  a 
single  intelligible  English  word,  needed  no  instruc« 
tion  as  to  the  method  to  train  his  eyes  and  muscles 
in  exactitude.  Ten  minutes  a  day  of  that  exercise 


20  SELF-RELIANCE 

•would  have  obviated  any  danger  that  he  would  spill 
water  in  taking  a  drink  at  eighteen  months  of  age. 
If  he  is  then  taught  how  to  turn  a  faucet,  he  is  in 
one  more  respect  forever  emancipated  from  the 
servitude  of  being  waited  upon. 

Again  the  mother,  reading  the  stories  of  little 
folks  in  modern  day-nurseries,  who  tuck  in  their 
own  napkins  and  feed  themselves,  is  now  apt  to  let 
her  tiny  sons  and  daughters  learn  to  manage  a  spoon 
as  soon  as  they  show  any  capacity  for  doing  so ;  but 
nothing  having  been  said  in  books  or  magazines 
about  bureau  drawers,  she  is  very  apt  to  precipitate 
herself  upon  a  little  child  trying  to  shut  a  drawer, 
and  to  cry  out  as  she  bears  him  off  to  safety :  "No, 
no,  baby  darling!  Baby  pinch  fingers!  Bad 
drawer.  Mama  do  it  for  him!"  Yet  if  she  sat 
down  on  the  floor  by  him  and,  analyzing  the  action 
step  by  step,  showed  him  how  to  shut  a  drawer 
without  pinching  his  finger,  she  would  find  her  two- 
year-old  child  perfectly  capable  of  doing  it  deftly 
and  safely.  The  outward  and  visible  result  of  this 
teaching  would  be  his  mastery  of  one  more  piece  of 
household  machinery  and  (the  inward  and  spiritual 
result  would  be  a  strengthening  of  his  sglfngQufii. 
dence,  his  natural  desire  to  do  things  for  himself, 
and  the  vigor  and  accuracy  of  his  muscles — results 
that  are  quite  worth  a  ten-minute  drill  once  or  twice. 

The  mother  painstakingly  repeats  over  and  over 


EARLY    CHILDHOOD  21 

the  word  the  child  is  trying  to  pronounce,  and  she 
is  not  discouraged  by  the  stumbling  inaccuracy  of 
his  unpractised  little  tongue.  The  fact  that  he  is 
interested  enough  to  try  it  is  proof  positive  that  he 
will  soon  be  able  to  master  it.  She  never  dreams  of 
saying:  "No,  dearest  baby,  'kitty'  is  too  hard  a 
word  for  baby  to  say.  Let  mama  say  it  for  him !" 
The  absurdity  of  that  is  patent  to  her.  But  she 
does  not; with  equal  patience  show  him  over  and 
over  how  to  carry  a  light  stool  about  and  use  it  to 
climb  up  in  the  armchair  he  covets/^  She  says: 
"Does  baby  want  to  get  into  papa's  chair?  There, 
mama  lift  him  in!"  And  then  mama  must  lift 
him  out,  of  course!  This  furnishes  a  delightful 
passage  in  mama's  life,  with  a  chance  at  which 
all  of  us  besotted  mothers  are  only  too  eager  to 
snatch,  of  hugging  the  sweet  small  body  and  kiss- 
ing the  round  cheeks.  It  is  quite  a  bother  to  show 
him  over  and  over  how  to  climb  up  on  his  stool  and 
thereafter  to  watch  over  the  first  experiments,  to 
safeguard  the  inevitable  first  upsets.  But  if  she  is 
looking  out  for  the  best  interests  of  the  small  per- 
son under  her  charge,  rather  than  for  a  good  excuse 
to  give  him  a  hug,  she  will  patiently  insist  upon  the 
use  of  the  stool,  whenever  it  is  possible. 

(A  small  light  stool  as  an  extension  of  his  short 
stature  is  as  essential  a  part  of  a  baby's  outfit,  as  the 
small  light  stick  that  extends  the  reach  of  his  baby 


22  SELF-RELIANCE 

arm. ")  Do  not  fear  that  he  will  use  his  stick  to 
knock  off  the  ornaments  from  the  mantel-piece.  In 
the  first  place  he  can't  reach  them,  -^en  with  his 
stick,  and  in  the  second,  iif  he  is  provided  with 
plenty  of  balls  and  blocks  he  will  never  think  of  less 
interesting  adult  belongings/  And  lastly  if  he 
should  manage  to  reach  ornaments  and  try  to  break 
them,  then  it  will  be  time  enough  and  the  right  time 
to  teach  him  not  to.  If  we  accept  in  practise  what 
we  proclaim  in  theory,  that  we  are  trying  to  help  the 
baby  to  grow,  not  to  get  through  his  babyhood  with 
as  little  trouble  as  possible,  we  shall  welcome  this 
opportunity  of  starting  him  on  the  road  he  must 
travel  all  his  life.  He  can't  long  be  kept  free  from 
temptation;  it  does  harm  rather  than  good  to  keep 
him  free  from  any  temptation  at  all  comparable 
with  his  power  to  resist.  If  he  tries  to  poke  the 
cane  through  the  looking-glass,  he  can  generally  be 
taught  just  as  adults  are  taught  that  some  things 
"aren't  done,"  and  if  they  are  done,  the  penalty  one 
has  to  pay  outweighs  the  fun  of  doing  them.  Of 
course  I  don't  mean  that  the  mother  must  let  him 
break  the  looking-glass  and  then  save  the  money  for 
a  new  one  out  of  his  toy  allowance.  That  is  more 
or  less  what  will  happen  to  him  in  after  life,  but  as 
yet  he  wouldn't  understand  it.  It  will  be  enough 
like  actual  life  if,  every  time  he  makes  a  threatening 
gesture  with  the  cane,  the  mother  takes  it  away 


EARLY   CHILDHOOD  23 

from  him,  saying:  "No,  no,  mustn't  break  things 
with  the  cane."  The  process  of  giving  it  back  for 
a  fresh  trial  and  taking  it  back  at  signs  of  backslid- 
ing will  be  somewhat  wearisome  for  the  mother 
while  it  is  necessary,  (which  is  not  long),  but  most 
instructive  for  the  child. 

The  stool,  the  cup,  the  stick,  the  bureau-drawer, 
the  faucet,  what  are  they  but  tools  devised  by  hu- 
man ingenuity;  and  the  use  of  tools  is  one  of  the 
most  important  devices  for  training  the  young  hu- 
man animal  to  self-help.  Being  human  he  has  a  pro- 
found interest  in  tools,  and  is  willing,  for  instance,  to 
bend  every  energy  to  learn  to  use  the  lever,  although 
he  may  not  know  its  name  for  a  dozen  years.  Is  he 
trying  to  extricate  from  his  sand-pile  a  buried  stone  ? 
Don't  pull  it  out  with  one  jerk.  Give  him  a  stick, 
show  him  how  to  thrust  one  end  under  the  stone 
and  put  his  weight  on  the  other  end.  You  will  find 
him  a  week  later  using  the  principle  to  force  open  a 
door  that  is  difficult  to  open.  Does  the  baby-girl 
find  her  doll-carriage  will  not  go  over  the  threshold  ? 
Don't  lift  it  for  her.  Show  her  how  to  bear  down 
on  the  handle  so  that  the  front  wheels  will  be  off  the 
ground,  and  then  how  to  lift  and  push  at  the  same 
time.  If  you  have  not  had  experience  with  the  in- 
nate tool-using  capacity  of  the  human  race,  you  will 
be  astonished  to  see  how  quickly  she  grasps  the 
principle  of  physics  involved,  and  how  she  will  pro- 


24  SELF-RELIANCE 

ceed  to  put  it  into  execution  with  obstacles  encoun- 
tered thereafter. 

And,  of  course,  there  is  a  greater  principle  in- 
volved than  any  law  of  physics.  Back  of  all  this 
stooping  to  observe  minutely  what  are  the  capacities 
of  a  little  child,  back  of  all  this  ingenuity  in  devising 
ways  for  the  two-  and  three-year-olds  to  make  use 
of  the  ordinary  apparatus  of  a  home,  lies  the  faith 
in  habit,  that  great  master  of  human  life.  No  child 
is  naturally  passive.  If  we  can  avoid  forcing  him 
into  passivity  in  early  childhood,  we  need  have  no 
fears  as  to  his  capacity  later  to  look  out  for  himself. 
A  little  boy  who  at  two  does  not  ask  to  be  lifted  up 
on  a  sofa,  but  goes  and  gets  a  little  stool  to  climb 
up  and  down,  has  set  his  feet  on  the  path  which 
leads  surely  and  certainly  to  self-reliance.  The 
three-year-old  girl  who  can  open  and  shut  doors  for 
herself,  can  put  on  and  off  her  own  wraps,  and  can 
get  a  clean  dress  out  of  her  own  bureau  drawer,  will 
not  at  seven  ask  her  teacher  to  put  her  rubbers  on 
for  her.  The  little  child  who  has  discovered  the 
delightful  extension  of  his  strength  which  comes 
from  the  use  of  a  lever,  will,  when  the  time  comes, 
seize  eagerly  on  the  use  of  a  hammer  and  saw  and 
plane ;  and  that  means  he  will  make  things  for  him- 
self,  instead  of  asking  somebody  to  buy  them  for 
him. 

Any  human  being,  young  or  old,  who  has  once 


EARLY   CHILDHOOD  25 

tasted  the  pleasure  of  competent  activity,  will  never 
lack  the  instinct  to  do  for  himself.  There  is  no 
surer  beginning  for  the  habit  of  self-help  than  the 
consistent  training  of  the  capacity  for  it.  What 
people  know  how  to  do  well,  they  like  to  do. 


CHAPTER  III 

AFTER   BABYHOOD  AND   BEFORE   SCHOOL  AGE 

A>  the  child  gets  older  he  rapidly  emerges  from 
the  inimitable  concentration  on  himself  alone 
which  marks  the  baby,  and  comes  into  a  dawning 
realization  that  there  are  other  people  in  the  world, 
even  in  his  world,  and  that  he  has  certain  relations 
to  them.  This  period  of  clear,  new-minted,  vivid 
impressions  of  family  life  is  a  very  important  one 
(what  period  is  not?)  and  a  child's  later  impulses 
about  helping  himself  or  getting  other  people  to  do 
his  work  for  him,  are  largely  colored  by  his  un- 
erringly accurate  observation  at  this  time  as  to  the 
habits  in  this  respect  of  his  father  and  mother,  and 
older  brothers  and  sisters.  He  is  almost  as  help- 
lessly imitative  now  at  four  and  five,  as  he  was  at 
two  and  three ;  and  if  he  is  surrounded  by  an  atmos- 
phere of  well-directed  energy  he  will  soon  be  dip- 
ping his  little  oar  into  the  current  and  paddling  with 
the  rest. 

He  knows  only  what  he  sees  with  his  eyes,  but  he 
misses  little  of  what  goes  on  before  his  eyes  under 
the  roof  that  shelters  him.  If  the  roof  chances  to 
be  that  of  an  apartment  hotel  in  which  food  is  se- 

26 


AFTER   BABYHOOD  27 

cured  by  getting  an  elevator  boy  to  take  the  family 
'down-stairs  to  a  dining-room  where  somebody  puts 
a  meal  on  the  table;  where  the  rooms  are  cleaned 
by  some  one  summoned  by  an  electric  button;  and 
if  the  child's  mother  uses  her  considerable  leisure  in 
buying  ready-made  articles  of  one  sort  and  another, 
his  parents  should  not  be  surprised  to  have  the  little 
fellow  expect  to  put  a  nickel  in  the  slot  and  draw 
forth  the  moon.  It  is  as  foolish  to  hope  to  be  able 
to  develop  in  a  child  habits  of  self-reliance,  initia- 
tive and  industry  in  surroundings  where  none  of 
those  qualities  is  ever  visible  to  his  eye,  as  to  hope 
to  develop  a  highly  trained  ear  for  music  in  a  child 
who  never  hears  a  musical  note  from  one  year's  end 
to  another.  It  can't  be  done.  Of  course  all  my  sen- 
sible readers  are  saying  to  themselves :  "Oh,  what 
an  exaggerated  example !  No  sane  person  would  try 
to  bring  up  children  in  an  apartment  hotel  save  as  a 
desperate  last  resort.  Only  the  most  minute  pro- 
portion of  American  families  live  in  such  conditions. 
Most  of  us,  even  most  flat-dwellers  cook,  sweep  and 
wash  dishes  just  as  in  the  old  days." 

Let  these  sensible  readers  reserve  their  protest 
until  they  have  cast  an  honestly  examining  eye  upon 
their  own  well-run  comfortable  homes.  Not  a  few 
will  see  that  the  unformulated  ideal  which  they  are 
unconsciously  trying  to  approach  is  that  of  a  private 
apartment  hotel,  where  all  the  real  processes  of  life 


28  SELF-RELIANCE 

are  decorously  hidden  under  a  smooth  appearance 
of  automatic  action.  They  will  see  that  they  are 
trying  to  conceal  the  fact  that  it  takes  work  to  keep 
a  house  going,  just  as,  in  the  days  of  old-fashioned 
plumbing,  they  tried  to  conceal  the  fact  that  it 
takes  pipes  to  get  water  into  a  sink,  by  means  of  a 
smoothly  finished  wooden  under-the-sink  closet, 
whose  exterior  was  varnished  and  whose  interior 
was  cockroaches.  The  avowed  aim  of  every  good 
housekeeper  is  to  run  her  house  with  no  show  of 
the  effort  it  costs  her,  so  smoothly  that  the  ma- 
chinery is  both  inaudible  and  invisible.  This  pro- 
duces an  effect  very  agreeable  to  adults  whose  real 
life  is  lived  elsewhere.  But  let  her  beware  lest  her 
smooth  appearance  deceive  the  children  as  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  case.  It  makes  little  difference  to  a  five- 
year-old  if  he  lives  in  an  apartment  hotel  or  a  pri- 
vate house,  if  his  bed  is  always  made  and  his  meals 
always  prepared  and  his  room  always  kept  in  order 
by  either  a  competent  mama  or  a  well-trained 
servant.  If  he  never  has  to  give  such  matters  any 
more  thought  than  when  he  was  two  years  old,  the 
effect  is  the  same  on  him.  His  nascent  ability  to 
reason  from  cause  to  effect  will  find  little  to  feed 
on  in  his  daily  life  if  all  the  consequences  of  his  acts 
are  noiselessly  and  competently  shouldered  by  other 
people. 


AFTER    BABYHOOD  29 

And  even — to  go  a  peg  lower  in  the  financial  scale 
• — the  mother  who  is  in  the  proud  position  (she 
should  be  proud  of  it)  of  "doing  her  own  work" 
(pregnant  and  significant  phrase!)  furnishes  her 
little  child  with  no  better  background  than  the  apart- 
ment hotel,  or  the  much-servanted  home,  if  she 
goes  on  caring  for  her  growing  children  as  though 
they  were  babies.  If  her  six-  and  seven-year-old 
boy  is  always  sent  out  to  play  while  she  "does  the 
work"  and  then  is  called  in  to  a  meal  miraculously 
flowering  out  of  the  table,  she  is  not  helping  him  to 
any  more  realizing  sense  of  the  great  fact  that  pro- 
cesses do  not  do  themselves.  On  his  grasp  of  that 
fact  depends  the  sturdiness  of  his  later  mental  and 
moral  attitude  toward  life.  If  during  those  form- 
ative years  of  first  impressions,  the  virgin  white- 
ness of  his  unthinking,  baby  acceptance  of  every- 
thing can  be  covered  over  and  over  with  reiterated 
engravings  of  the  maxim  that  somebody  must  do 
everything  that  is  done,  he  will  be  headed  straight 
toward  an  honest  acceptance  of  his  share  in  that 
never-ending  process.  But,  as  a  little  child's  knowl- 
edge is  strictly  limited  to  his  own  experience,  it  is 
practically  impossible  to  make  him  believe  that 
maxim  unless  he  sees  it  in  operation  about  him,  un- 
less he  sees  those  he  loves  and  respects  openly  doing 
their  share  of  the  world's  work.  He  is  old  enough 


30  SELF-RELIANCE 

by  this  time,  if  his  parents  have  made  a  companion 
of  him,  to  understand  a  simple  explanation  of  the 
plan  and  organization  of  the  home.  But  in  kindness 
to  his  mother  let  me  warn  her  against  undertaking 
this  explanation  until  she  has  it  crystal-clear  in  her 
own  mind,  because  she  may  encounter  unexpected 
difficulties.  Suppose  an  explanation  running  along 
this  line :  "You  see,  Jackie,  dear,  there's  a  certain 
amount  of  work  to  be  done  to  keep  the  home  run- 
ning and  comfortable  for  all  of  us.  Father  works 
all  day  to  make  the  money  to  buy  what  we  need,  but 
just  that  wouldn't  make  it  a  real  home.  Mother,  of 
course,  does  the  most  of  the  work,  because  she's  the 
strongest  and  the  oldest,  and  before  you  children 
came,  she  did  it  all.  But  each  child  makes  more 
work ;  he  sleeps  in  a  bed,  and  has  to  have  drawers  to 
keep  his  clean  clothes  in ;  and  a  corner  to  play  in,  and 
he  has  to  have  food  to  eat,  and  dishes  to  eat  it  on. 
Now,  when  the  child  is  a  little  weak  baby,  mother 
has  to  do  all  her  work  and  all  the  extra  work  the 
baby  makes  too.  But  as  he  gets  older  he  begins  to  do 
his  own  share  and  to  even  up  for  the  extra  work 
he  makes.  Big  sister  is  getting  our  breakfasts  for 
us  now,  as  well  as  keeping  her  own  room  in  order  j 
and  big  brother  sweeps  the  floor  and  keeps  the  bath- 
room clean.  You're  too  little  to  do  that  much ;  but 
you  can  make  your  own  bed  every  morning,  and 


AFTER    BABYHOOD  31 

keep  your  two  bureau  drawers  in  order,  just  as  little 
sister  is  too  little  to  make  her  crib,  but  she  can  put 
her  playthings  neatly  back  in  the  box." 

Fortunate  the  woman  whose  life  is  cast  along 
such  simple  and  unassailable  lines  that  she  can  issue 
such  a  plain  and  understandable  statement  of  the 
foundations  of  home  life!  She  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  proverbially  eagle  eye  of  childhood,  alert  to 
pounce  on  fraud  and  pretense.  She  is  not  only  for- 
tunate, but  seldom  to  be  found.  Most  of  us  trip  our 
heels  over  some  such  unexpected  question  as  that 
quoted  to  me  the  other  day  by  a  laughing  but  dis- 
comfited young  matron  who  had  attempted  to  per- 
suade her  little  girl  to  dust  the  parlor.  "I  don't  want 
the  child  to  grow  up  absolutely  idle,  you  know,  and 
I  couldn't  think  of  anything  else  for  her  to  do,"  she 
explained  to  me.  The  little  girl  demurred:  "No, 
mother,  I  don't  want  to!  You  make  Bridget  do 
your  work;  why  shouldn't  she  do  mine?"  My 
friend  was  startled  by  this  view  of  the  matter.  "I 
tried  to  explain  to  Polly,"  she  said,  "that  I  hired 
Bridget  to  do  all  the  heavy  common  work,  so  that  I 
could  have  time  to — and  then,  do  you  know,  I 
couldn't  go  on !  Polly  knows  so  well  what  I  do  do, 
and  where  I  go,  that  there's  no  use  putting  up  any 
bluff  about  how  my  time  is  spent.  And  she's  alto- 
gether too  keen  a  little  thing  to  flim-flam  into  think- 


32  SELF-RELIANCE 

ing  that  playing  afternoon  bridge  or  shopping  with- 
out buying  ,.ny thing,  is  any  more  useful  a  way  to 
spend  an  afternoon  than  washing  our  own  dishes." 

"Well,  are  you  going  to  dismiss  Bridget?"  I 
asked  as  she  paused. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  she  said.  "Why  should  I  turn 
away  a  faithful  servant  ?" 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  I  hesitated  between  giving  some  time  as 
public  playground  supervisor,  or  being  a  camp-fire- 
girl  leader,"  she  said,  with  a  humorous  face  of  resig- 
nation, "and  I've  settled  on  the  Camp-fire  Girls. 
I'll  start  an  organization  among  the  girls  of  our 
neighborhood,  and  have  Polly  in  it.  Then  I  can 
explain  to  her  that  I  hire  Bridget  to  do  the  useful 
things  she  can  do  as  well  as  I,  so  that  I'll  have  time 
to  do  the  useful  things  Bridget  couldn't  do."  She 
pulled  her  veil  down,  took  up  her  parasol  and  pre- 
pared to  leave.  "Talk  about  the  difficulties  of  get- 
ting by  St.  Peter  at  the  gates  of  Heaven !"  she  said 
over  her  shoulder;  "they're  nothing  to  the  difficul- 
ties of  accounting  for  yourself  to  your  own  child!" 

It  is  probable  that  many  another  honest  mother 
will  encounter  a  certain  difficulty  if  she  tries 
to  explain  clearly  to  a  child  the  duty  of  every 
person  to  do  his  share  of  the  world's  work.  It  is 
even  possible  that  no  better  result  could  be  hoped 
for  than  that  maternity  should  in  this  instance,  as  it 


AFTER   BABYHOOD  33 

does  in  so  many  others,  educate  her,  so  that  she  can 
educate  her  children;  and  that  beginning  by  trying 
to  make  her  children  realize  their  small  responsibili- 
ties, she  should  end  by  a  clearer  sight  of  her  own 
greater  ones.  She  can  thus  go  forward  hand  in  hand 
with  them  through  the  day's  well-balanced  program 
of  work  and  study  and  fun. 

If  it  seems  hard  on  the  tot  of  five  to  have  him  be- 
gin to  do  some  of  the  work  of  the  household,  let  it 
be  remembered  that  children,  even  little  children, 
are  much  like  the  rest  of  us  and  infinitely  prefer  to 
have  some  regular  definite  task,  reasonably  related 
to  their  own  life,  than  to  be  pounced  upon  spasmod- 
ically at  any  hour  which  suits  an  adult,  to  "run  er- 
rands" or  to  do  single,  detached,  unrelated  bits  of 
drudgery  whenever  it  occurs  to  an  adult  that  they 
should  be  done.  It  is  easier  for  a  child  to  set  his 
will  to  the  accomplishing  of  a  fair  amount  of  work 
suitable  for  him,  which  is  required  of  him  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  than  to  be  at  the  beck  and  call  of 
every  adult  who  wants  spectacles  fetched.  A  child 
likes  to  feel,  as  we  all  like  to  feel,  that  when  he  has 
done  his  day's  work,  his  time  is,  for  the  most  part, 
his  own ;  and  a  corollary  of  his  regular  tasks  should 
be  that  he  is  not  thereafter  held  responsible  for  other 
service.  Of  course  this  should  not  be  too  rigidly 
carried  out,  and  like  all  other  members  of  the  fam- 
ily, he  should  expect  to  take  his  share  of  any  un- 


34  SELF-RELIANCE 

planned- for  work  which  circumstances  make  neces- 
sary. But  as  a  general  thing  his  little  dignity  should 
be  respected. 

Furthermore  there  is  no  better  practise  for  him 
than  the  elementary  experience  in  planning  his  time 
which  comes  when  he  has  certain  regular  set  tasks 
to  be  somehow  fitted  into  his  day's  activities.  If 
they  are  talked  over  and  decided  upon  in  a  leisurely, 
friendly  discussion  with  his  parents,  and  if  he  sees 
others  of  the  family  taking  as  a  matter  of  course 
their  share  of  what  is  to  be  done,  he  is  an  abnormal 
child  of  five  who  does  not  painlessly  and  all  but  un- 
consciously settle  upon  his  little  shoulders  that 
goodly  yoke  of  the  habit  of  work,  which  will  enable 
him  to  bear  the  burden  of  his  adult  life.  There  is  a 
dignity  and  a  consistency  about  his  young  life  un- 
der such  circumstances  which  he  is  not  slow  to  feel. 

The  tasks  should  be  very  light  at  first,  quickly  ac- 
complished, and  so  closely  related  to  the  child's  own 
life  that  he  sees  the  justice  of  the  demand  made  on 
him.  To  ask  him  to  dust  a  living-room,  littered 
with  objects  which  have  no  "beauty"  to  his  eyes,  is 
a  hardship.  The  request  that  he  make  his  own  bed, 
just  as  other  people  make  theirs,  has  a  logical  se- 
quence to  his  mind.  To  explain  to  him  that  he  is 
asked  to  keep  the  porch  clean  and  in  order  because 
he  plays  there  so  much  is  to  appeal  to  the  always- 
present  instinct  for  fair  play. 


AFTER   BABYHOOD  35 

With  this  to  begin  on,  as  he  grows  older  and  his 
mental  capacity  increases,  he  can  grasp  the  more 
social  idea  of  lumping  together  all  the  work  of  the 
home,  and  dividing  it  according  to  individual  abil- 
ity, rather  than  allotting  to  each  one  the  task  which 
most  obviously  touches  his  own  life;  he  can  under- 
stand that  when  he  keeps  the  stairs  and  halt  clean  it 
is  not  because  he  alone  gets  them  dirty,  but  because 
he  is  "trading  works"  (in  the  rural  phrase)  with 
his  mother.  He  can  not  cook  the  food  he  eats,  so 
he  makes  up  for  his  share  of  that  by  doing  part  of 
something  else  that  his  mother  would  have  to  do,  if 
he  did  not.  And  there  is  perhaps  no  better  way  to 
soften  the  detestable  grabbing  spirit  of  greed  which 
is  apt  to  descend  upon  even  a  child  of  generous  in- 
stincts on  his  birthdays,  than  by  adding  to  the  other 
presents  showered  upon  the  child,  a  tribute  to  his 
greater  age,  strength  and  understanding  in  the 
shape  of  a  more  difficult  and  hence  more  interesting 
share  of  the  household  activities.  "Now  you're  six, 
Margaret ;  you're  big  enough  to  be  graduated  from 
just  putting  away  the  silver  when  the  dishes  are 
washed.  We'll  leave  that  to  little  Peter,  and  you 
can  dry  the  plates  and  cups  and  saucers." 

If  the  accession  of  greater  maturity  is  marked 
not  only  by  a  passive  acceptance  of  a  great  many 
gifts,  but  by  a  definite  acknowledgment  of  the  use 
to  which  maturity  is  put,  birthdays  might  not  leave 


36  SELF-RELIANCE 

such  a  bad  taste  of  satiety  in  the  child's  mouth,  on 
the  day  after. 

Now,  as  to  the  question  of  earning  money,  a  ques- 
tion not  enough  thought  about  in  easy-going  Amer- 
ican families.  The  little  child's  desires  are  so  small, 
so  easily  satisfied  compared  to  those  of  his  elders, 
that  the  temptation  to  gratify  them  is  almost  irre- 
sistible. The  father  sees  on  the  shop  counter  a  doll 
his  little  girl  coveted — only  twenty-five  cents — what 
he  would  spend  for  a  magazine  to  read  on  the  train. 
Into  his  pocket  goes  the  doll,  and  into  his  little  girl's 
mind  goes  the  conception  that  dolls  can  be  made 
to  grow  in  papa's  pocket  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
mentioning  one's  desire.  Now  this  is  not  a  very 
good  seed  to  sow  in  the  mind  of  a  little  American 
girl!  There  are  only  too  many  circumstances  in 
most  American  feminine  lives  which  will  help  it  to 
grow  into  that  half-conscious  parasitism  which  is  by 
no  means  unknown  even  among  quite  modern  young 
women. 

But  the  little  girl  must  have  dolls.  Yes,  and  her 
father  must  not  be  deprived  of  the  joy  of  giving 
them  to  her.  But  perhaps  he  can  restrict  that  joy  to 
special  occasions,  birthdays,  Fourth  of  July,  Christ- 
mas and  the  like.  Perhaps  for  every-day  routing 
he  might  be  willing  to  adopt  the  plan  of  opening 
to  his  little  six-year-old,  beyond  the  few  simple  daily 
tasks  allotted  to  her,  several  money-making  possi- 


AFTER   BABYHOOD  37 

bilities.  If,  in  addition  to  keeping  her  own  bureau 
in  order  and  sewing  on  her  own  buttons,  she  fix 
up  the  bathroom  neatly,  she  will  have  earned  five 
cents.  Washing  three  windows  is  worth  a  nickel, 
too,  and  taking  all  the  care  of  small  brother  for 
half  an  hour;  or  polishing  a  dozen  knives  and  a 
dozen  forks;  or  filling  the  flower-vases  with  fresh 
flowers  for  two  days;  or  weeding  one  row  of  the 
onion-bed;  or  feeding  the  chickens  for  three  days. 
These  financial  possibilities  vary  according  to  cir- 
cumstances and  the  ability  of  the  child;  but  some- 
thing of  the  sort  can  be  provided  in  almost  any 
home.  And  they  are  the  resource  for  the  child  who 
wants  a  new  toy.  If  he  wants  it  enough  to  work 
three  or  four  days  to  get  it,  he  can  have  it.  If  not, 
he  can  go  without.  He  has  only  himself  to  "tease" 
m  the  matter.  He  is  perfectly  free  to  choose.  And 
there  is  still  opportunity  on  festal  days,  for  the  fa- 
ther to  buy  those  bigger  things  which  would  take 
too  many  days  of  six-year-old  work  to  achieve,  the 
Irish  Mail,  the  tricycle,  the  big  baby  doll. 

The  conditions  described  here  fairly  approximate 
the  conditions  of  actual  life.  All  of  us  are  obliged 
to  work  to  some  extent  to  keep  from  starving.  That 
work  corresponds  to  the  child's  regular  daily  tasks. 
Beyond  that  bare  minimum  we  choose  of  our  own 
free  will  how  much  more  we  think  is  worth  working 
for.  Some  of  us  prefer  to  work  very  hard  and  have 


38  SELF-RELIANCE 

a  great  deal;  others  prefer  to  work  less,  and  take 
more  leisure  to  enjoy  what  we  have.  And  in  his 
limited  way  the  child  experiences  the  same  necessity 
to  choose.  Even  at  six  he  is  not  too  small  to  begin 
to  have  a  glimmering  of  the  idea  which  adult  life 
will  bring  home  to  him,  that  what  he  has  is  propor- 
tioned to  the  energy  and  purpose  fulness  of  his  own 
life. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CHILDHOOD   UNDER   APARTMENT-HOTEL 
CONDITIONS 

ET  no  one  think  that  the  author's  opinion  is  that 
the  only  way  to  be  useful  is  to  do  housework. 
Housework  is  coming  to  be  of  less  importance  as 
the  modern  world  is  organized.  But  it  is  a  very 
simple  and  natural  and  obvious  way  of  being  useful, 
the  meaning  of  which  is  apparent  to  the  eyes  of  any 
child.  The  preceding  chapter  was  written  to  re- 
mind those  still  living  under  the  old  traditional 
home  conditions  how  comparatively  easy  for  them 
is  the  problem  of  training  children  to  self-help.  It 
was  intended  also  as  a  warning  to  those  endeavor- 
ing, as  all  true  Americans  do  endeavor,  to  scramble 
out  from  those  primitive  conditions  into  what  we 
fallaciously  call,  "easier  circumstances."  Do  not  re- 
pine if  that  transition  to  a  more  complicated  way  of 
life  is  put  off  until  after  the  children  are  no  longer 
little;  for  it  takes  an  immense  expenditure  of 
thought  and  ingenuity  and  effort  to  find  in  the  new 
life,  anything  at  all  comparable  to  the  old  as  a 
school  for  children. 

However,  there  are  women,  an  increasing  number 
39 


40  SELF-RELIANCE 

of  them,  for  whom  it  would  be  folly  to  try  to  fit 
their  lives  into  the  old-fashioned  home,  mothers  who 
would  be  as  short-sighted  to  spend  their  lives  in 
washing  dishes,  as  their  husbands  would  be  to  spend 
their  lives  in  digging  ditches.  There  is  hope  for 
them.  As  a  rule,  a  woman  intelligent  enough  to  be 
notably  more  useful  at  something  else  than  at 
housework  at  home,  is  intelligent  enough  to  cope 
with  the  situation  for  her  children.  This,  however, 
is  only  true  if  she  uses  her  intelligence  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  too  few  of  them  realize  that  the  problem 
is  difficult  enough  to  demand  as  much  intelligence 
and  ingenuity  as  any  one  woman  can  possibly  mus- 
ter. She  can  not  solve  it  by  earning  money  for  her 
children.  She  must  not  turn  her  back  on  it,  and  let 
it  take  care  of  itself.  If  she  contents  herself  with 
sending  her  five-  and  six-year-olds  off  to  play  all 
day  in  the  park  with  a  nurse,  and  offers  to  their 
dawning  strength  of  personality  no  better  food  than 
the  harem-like  irresponsibility  of  what  is  known  as 
a  "well-run  nursery"  it  is  very  doubtful  if  she  is 
really  being  of  more  use  to  the  world  than  if  she  were 
doing  housework  and  keeping  her  children  near  her. 
If  she  is  alert  enough,  and  quick-witted  enough,  ade- 
quately to  devise  expedients  to  meet  the  new  condi- 
tions, she  is  justified  in  going  on  with  her  modern 
life  of  independent  effort  away  from  the  home;  but 
let  her  not  deceive  herself  as  to  the  harm  done  by 


APARTMENT   HOTELS  41 

allowing  children  no  longer  babies  to  continue  in  the 
dependent  position  of  babies,  and  to  lead  the  lives, 
proverbially  ending  in  moral  dry  rot,  of  idle  board- 
ers in  a  house,  for  the  conduct  of  which  they  feel  no 
responsibility.  Responsibility — there  is  the  magic 
key  to  the  door  we  are  all  trying  to  open  to  our 
children.  Every  one  of  experience  has  marveled 
at  the  transformation  of  a  girl  universally  consid- 
ered idle  and  irresponsible  and  languid,  into  an 
energetic  forceful  housewife,  after  she  marries  and 
takes  charge  of  her  own  home.  Many  times,  alas, 
the  opportunity  comes  too  late, — she  has  acquired 
too  thoroughly  the  dawdling  habits  of  badly-trained 
childishness  ever  to  shake  them  off  entirely.  But 
that  so  many  such  girls  are  thus  transformed  is 
proof  of  the  vitality  of  the  instinct  for  self-mastery 
on  which  we  may  count  in  children.  It  is  no  less 
true  of  the  other  sex.  Is  there  a  family  which  has 
not  seen  with  astonishment  a  slack,  lounging,  appar- 
ently invincibly  lazy  college  boy,  develop  into  a 
keen  masterful  man,  when  the  responsibility  for  his 
own  life  is  laid  upon  him?  Such  a  miracle  always 
takes  place,  in  any  human  being  of  any  ago  with  the 
bestowal  of  the  sacred,  the  divine  gift  of  respon- 
sibility. 

Now  home  work,  sharing  in  the  processes  of  a 
simple  home,  is  not  the  only  means  whereby  that 
golden  gift  of  responsibility  may  be  laid  in  the  hands 


42  SELF-RELIANCE 

of  little  children.  There  is  nothing  sacred  about 
making  beds  or  setting  breakfast-tables ;  but  it  must 
be  admitted  that  it  is  very  hard  to  find  activities 
which  as  plainly  and  directly  speak  to  the  mind  of  a 
little  child.  The  modern  mother  of  the  modern 
home  must  be  quick-witted  and  ingenious  indeed,  if 
she  finds  means  as  good  for  the  moral  health  of  her 
little  folk.  Her  best  resource  is  a  good  school  or 
kindergarten,  run  on  modern  lines  which  permits  the 
children  to  feel  partial  responsibility  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  institution.  And  there  are  few  cases  in 
which  she  can  have  such  a  school  for  her  children, 
without  actively  cooperating  in  establishing  and 
carrying  it  on.  The  machinery  is  not  by  any  means 
completed  and  oiled  which  permits  the  modern 
mother  to  step  out  of  the  home  as  matter-of-factly 
as  does  the  modern  father.  It  is  part  of  her  labor 
to  help  manufacture  that  machine  and  to  smooth  the 
way  for  later  mothers  who  wish  to  follow  in  her 
footsteps.  If  she  does  not  realize  this,  she  is  lamen- 
tably failing  in  her  duty.  If  she  does  not  intend  to 
train  her  children  herself,  she  need  not  expect  to 
have  the  work  competently  carried  on  by  any  other 
woman  not  a  specialist  in  child-training.  She  need 
not  expect  that  she  will  ever  be  able  to  hire  a  nurse- 
maid capable  of  grasping  the  faintest  conception  of 
teaching  children  self-reliance.  If  she  ever  does  en- 
counter one,  she  may  be  sure  that  the  supposed  serv- 


APARTMENT    HOTELS  43 

ant  is  an  investigating  sociologist  in  disguise.  Nor 
can  the  nurse  teach  them  much  even  if  she  knows 
how  to.  Her  very  presence  makes  difficult  any  ap- 
peal for  cooperation  by  the  children  in  the  activity 
of  all  the  family.  It  is  apparent  to  the  brute  sim- 
plicity of  their  small  minds  that  she  is  hired  to  take 
care  of  them.  "Let  her  do  it  then !" 

But  the  teacher  in  a  well-run  Montessori  school 
or  kindergarten  has  (or  may  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  have)  the  intelligence  to  care  for  the  chil- 
dren's best  interests,  as  the  mother  does  not  wish  to 
take  time  to  do.  Let  the  mother  at  least  do  all  in 
her  power  to  help  the  woman  who  is  doing  for  her 
such  a  vital  part  of  her  work. 

After  she  has  roused  the  women  of  the  neighbor- 
hood to  a  realization  of  the  necessity  for  such  a 
school,  after  she  has  organized  it  and  put  a  compe- 
tent woman  at  its  head,  the  conscientious  modern 
mother  turns  her  attention  to  an  analysis  of  what- 
ever home  life  there  is  left  at  home,  to  see  if  there 
are  not  portions  of  it,  for  which  the  children  might 
share  the  responsibility.  First  of  all  she  will  find 
that  if  she  is  ingenious,  she  can  devise  ways  for 
making  the  children  responsible  for  as  much  of  the 
conduct  of  their  own  small  lives  as  their  devel- 
opment allows.  Conditions  vary  so,  that  from 
here  on,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  give  the 
sketchiest  of  suggestions,  all  of  which  have  proved 


44  SELF-RELIANCE 

practical  in  some  cases,  but  which  may  or  may  not 
be  available  in  others.  The  underlying  principle 
will  be  apparent  to  any  thoughtful  reader.  Each 
child  of  five  or  over  can  begin  to  be  held  responsible 
for  the  cleanliness  of  his  own  clothes,  and  can  have 
his  own  individual  laundry  bag.  He  can  be  trained 
to  remember  (with  an  occasional  reminder  from 
mother  or  nurse)  when  to  change  his  underwear 
and  when  to  put  his  own  soiled  clothes  in  with  the 
general  family  laundry :  and  when  the  clean  clothes 
return,  he  can  be  held  responsible  for  putting  away 
his  own  garments  in  the  space  allotted  to  them.  It 
is  a  fact  that  there  are  boys  and  girls  old  enough  to 
go  away  to  college,  who  are  incapable  of  running 
this  part  of  their  lives,  who,  though  studying  algebra 
and  Greek,  are  subconsciously  convinced  that  clean 
and  mended  clothes  grow  of  themselves  in  their  bu- 
reau drawers.  The  too  devoted  mother  or  aunt  or 
nurse  who  is  responsible  for  this  relic  of  babyishness 
is  no  benefactor  of  the  race ! 

As  to  the  matter  of  mending,  that  depends  on 
the  age  of  the  child.  Most  five-  and  six-year-olds 
are  capable  of  sewing  on  their  own  buttons  and  they 
are  all  capable  of  looking  over  a  garment,  deciding 
if  it  needs  repairs,  and  taking  it  themselves  to 
whomever  in  their  homes  is  the  mender  of  the  fam- 
ily. The  mere  fact  that  their  attention  is  called 
week  after  week  to  the  axiom  that  clothes  need 


APARTMENT    HOTELS  45 

mending  and  that  mending  is  not  done  without 
hands,  is  of  invaluable  service  to  the  children's 
minds. 

The  answering  of  the  telephone  is  in  some  cases 
a  process  of  modern  life  in  which  children  can  share. 
During  certain  periods  of  the  day  (short  ones,  al- 
ways) the  child  is  responsible  for  telephone  calls, 
talking  with  the  person  calling,  if  father  and  mother 
happen  to  be  away,  or  if  they  happen  to  be  at  home, 
seeing  that  they  are  called  promptly  to  the  tele- 
phone. Answering  the  door-bell  is  another  duty  of 
which  the  children  might  well  have  an  occasional 
experience,  even  if  they  make  mistakes  in  their  re- 
sponses to  the  various  sorts  and  conditions  of  call- 
ers. Both  these  exercises  are  helpful  because  they 
help  to  free  the  child  from  that  detached  passive 
attitude  toward  what  goes  on  in  his  home,  which  is 
the  surest  beginning  of  the  objectionable,  detached 
and  irresponsible  attitude  toward  life  in  general. 

The  daily  toilet,  of  course,  being  an  entirely  per- 
sonal matter,  should  as  soon  and  as  completely  as 
possible,  be  put  in  the  hands  of  the  person  whom  it 
concerns.  Not  only  should  the  child  of  six  expect 
as  a  matter  of  course  to  dress  himself,  brush  his 
own  teeth  and  wash  his  own  face ;  but-  he  should 
begin  to  decide  (subject  to  veto  by  his  mother) 
which  of  his  clothes  he  should  wear.  It  should  be 
brought  home  by  experience  to  the  mind  of  the  little 


46  SELF-RELIANCE 

girl  who  loves  to  dress  up,  that  if  she  wears  her  "best 
dress"  day  after  day  it  is  soon  not  fit  to  be  seen, 
whereas  her  plain,  durable  every-day  dresses  stand 
the  visit  to  the  laundry  and  return  better  than  ever. 
She  should  know  about  how  many  dresses  she  owns, 
and  should  herself  make  the  calculation  as  to  how 
often  she  can  afford  to  put  on  a  clean  frock. 

In  several  families  of  my  acquaintance  the  ques- 
tion of  going-to-bed  has  been  made  an  opportunity 
for  the  inculcating  of  responsibility  and  self-reli- 
ance, instead  of  the  occasion  for  recurrent,  wran- 
gling discussions.  The  bedtime  of  the  different 
children  is  decided  upon  in  family  conclave  (which 
includes,  of  course,  the  child  in  question)  and  then 
as  part  of  his  day's  work  the  child  is  expected  to  get 
himself  undressed  and  in  bed  at  the  hour  set.  For 
every  week  running  that  he  does  this,  he  is  allowed 
some  special  coveted  treat. 

It  would  seem  hardly  necessary  to  add  a  sugges- 
tion that  each  child  have  a  hook  or  two  for  his  own 
wraps  and  a  place  for  his  own  rubbers  and  umbrella, 
if  there  were  not  still  existing  so  many  American 
households  where  this  elementary  device  for  self- 
help  is  non-existent  and  where  in  response  to  the 
clamorous  rainy-morning  demand  from  the  chil- 
dren, "Where  are  my  rubbers?"  the  harassed 
mother  calls  out:  "Look  behind  the  door  in  the 
hall!  Have  you  tried  the  back-porch?  Maybe 


APARTMENT   HOTELS  47 

they're  in  the  closet  under  the  stairs.  Where  do 
you  suppose  you  left  them  this  time?9'  The  habit 
of  hanging  up  one's  own  wraps  can  be  acquired  in 
very  young  childhood  so  that  it  is  never  lost ;  but  it 
can  not  be  acquired  unless  the  essential  condition  is 
provided,  a  never-varying  place  to  put  them  that  is 
never  encroached  upon  by  adults. 

The  question  of  how  to  keep  in  order  the  over- 
whelming avalanche  of  toys  in  the  playroom  can  be 
best  answered  by  reducing  the  proportions  of  the 
avalanche.  If  the  playthings  are  well  selected,  with 
the  aim  of  promoting  (to  use  President  Elliot's  fa- 
mous phrase)  the  permanent  satisfactions  of  life, 
there  need  not  be  so  many  of  them.  A  blackboard 
is  available  for  a  hundred  uses  and  by  its  mere  blank 
presence  in  a  children's  room  stimulates  inventive- 
ness and  fires  the  imagination.  Not  so  a  mechan- 
ical dog  that  turns  somersaults.  After  the  first  few 
days  of  wonder,  the  interest  in  him  vanishes,  and  he 
remains  in  the  nursery  only  as  one  of  the  meaning- 
less jumble  which  makes  too  exacting  the  demand 
that  the  children  keep  their  room  in  reasonable  or- 
der. Nobody  can  keep  a  junk-heap  in  order, 
and  it  is  self-defeating  tyranny  to  ask  children 
to.  But  here  again,  as  in  every  step  taken  to  benefit 
them  they  should  share,  as  soon  as  possible,  in  the 
reasoning  which  leads  to  the  rule  and  in  the  respon- 
sibility for  seeing  it  executed.  They  and  not  their 


48  ,      SELF-RELIANCE 

mother  should  decide  which  of  their  toys  are  junk; 
but  they  should  be  held  to  the  decision.  If  they 
care  enough  about  any  given  plaything  to  keep  it  in 
its  place  when  they  are  not  using  it,  they  should  be 
allowed  to  retain  it  in  the  playroom.  When  it  is  no 
longer  of  value  enough  to  care  for  properly,  they 
should  consign  it  either  to  other  children  not  so  bur- 
dened with  toys,  or  to  a  big  box  where  the  reserve 
playthings  are  kept.  Often  after  a  rest  of  some 
weeks,  a  once-despised  toy  accumulates  fresh 
charms,  has  new  possibilities  and  is  taken  out  and 
played  with  again,  serving  the  purpose  quite  as  well 
as  a  new  one.  And  beyond  this  substantial  consid- 
eration, the  benefit  to  the  child  is  indisputable.  He 
has  begun  what  should  be  one  of  the  most  funda- 
mental and  vital  processes  of  his  life,  the  process  of 
choosing  those  elements  which  are  worth  retaining, 
and  of  clearing  his  horizon  of  those  which  are  not. 
If  the  necessity  to  make  this  choice  consciously  and 
intelligently  is  repeatedly  forced  upon  a  little  child, 
he  will  not  grow  up  to  be  a  helpless  victim  of  mod- 
ern complication,  whose  energy  is  dissipated  by  a 
helpless  response  to  a  thousand  diverse  demands. 
For  a  five-year-old,  to  clear  out  his  playroom  of 
junk  which  is  not  longer  of  use  or  profit  to  him,  is 
a  process  comparable  to  that  by  which  a  woman  of 
intelligence  and  conscience  decides  that  she  will 
eliminate  the  distracting  folly  of  formal  "society" 


APARTMENT   HOTELS  49 

life,  a  decision  which  needs  all  the  courage  and  self- 
confidence  that  can  be  developed  only  during  a  life 
in  which  self-reliance  has  been  a  determining  factor. 
Another  side  of  the  child's  life  which  would 
profit  by  a  larger  infusion  of  self-reliance,  is  the 
question  of  his  relation  to  the  weather.  The  little 
baby  is  put  into  this  or  that  wrap  like  a  doll,  and  in 
too  many  cases  the  big  girl  of  seven  is  treated  in  the 
same  way.  Any  child  old  enough  to  read  numbers 
should  be  taught  to  consult  the  thermometer  regu- 
larly every  morning  just  as  any  sensible  and  en- 
lightened adult  does,  and  should  learn  to  gauge  the 
necessity  for  wraps  according  to  the  verdict  of  that 
invaluable  instrument.  The  relation  of  wraps  to 
weather  is  a  matter  which  ought  to  be  talked  over 
rationally  and  quietly  between  parent  and  child  and 
then  part  of  the  responsibility  for  carrying  out  the 
plan  should  be  left  with  the  child.  I  quote  from 
such  a  wrap-chart  already  existing,  which  would 
need  to  be  varied  according  to  climate  and  the  age 
of  the  child. 

Above  74 :  barefoot. 
Above  60 :  no  hat,  no  coat. 
Between  45  and  60 :  light  coat,  cap. 
Between  30  and  45  :  heavy  coat,  cap,  mittens. 
Below  30 :  heavy  coat,  leggings,  fur-cap,  mittens. 
On  rainy  days  wear  rubbers,  a  rain-coat. 


50  SELF-RELIANCE 

On  threatening  days  carry  rubbers  in  school-bag 
when  leaving  home,  and  either  umbrella  or  rain- 
coat. 

The  mere  presence  of  such  a  chart,  prepared  in 
common  with  his  parents  and  authorized  by  himself, 
brings  to  the  top  those  law-abiding  instincts  of  reg- 
ularity which  exist  in  every  human  being,  and  which 
run  instinctively  counter  to  the  apparently  baseless, 
whimsical  adult  command,  "Now,  Willie,  you  put 
on  your  heavy  coat  to-day !" 

Beyond  the  excellent  habit  of  looking  at  the  ther- 
mometer in  the  morning  as  regularly  as  he  brushes 
his  teeth  the  child  acquires  the  far  more  important 
habit  of  himself  assuming  some  of  the  responsibility 
for  being  adequately  clothed  for  existing  weather 
conditions,  a  responsibility  which  often  comes  as  a 
surprising  shock  to  young  people  legally  of  age. 

As  the  children  in  the  apartment  hotel  grow 
older,  there  come  into  their  lives  other  factors 
which  may  be,  but  not  often  are,  used  to  develop 
self-reliance  and  responsibility.  Such  modern  fami- 
lies are  apt  to  travel  about  a  good  deal,  and  this  is 
an  excellent  opportunity  to  lead  the  children  out  of 
babyish  dependence  into  a  competent  ability  to  han- 
dle a  number  of  modern  institutions.  Instead  of 
playing  with  a  toy  or  reading  a  story-book  while  his 
father  looks  up  routes,  and  figures  on  connections, 


APARTMENT    HOTELS  51 

and  decides  on  trains,  let  the  ten-year-old  look  over 
the  paternal  shoulder  and  see  how  the  thing  is  done. 
Teach  the  twelve-year-old  girl  how  to  use  a  railroad 
time-table,  so  that  she  may  not  grow  into  the 
woman  so  frequently  encountered,  who  leans  spine- 
lessly  on  the  Bureau  of  Information  or  a  chance 
and  none-too-courteous  brakeman,  for  information 
about  her  journey  that  is  all  contained  in  the  rail- 
road folder  in  her  lap.  Let  the  fourteen-year-olds 
(subject,  of  course,  to  their  parents'  advice  and  veto) 
plan  all  the  family  trips,  determine  the  routes  and 
estimate  beforehand  the  amount  of  money  that  will 
be  needed,  and,  as  soon  as  possible,  let  them  handle 
some  of  the  actual  details  of  the  transaction.  I  do 
not  mean  that  one  is  to  go  with  one's  bewildered 
and  confused  ten-year-old  son  to  the  baggage  win- 
dow of  a  great  station  in  a  rush  hour,  and  insist 
that  the  boy  check  the  family  trunks.  Under  those 
conditions,  all  the  child  can  do  is  to  watch  what  his 
parent  does,  and  this  is  a  privilege  seldom  vouch- 
safed to  traveling  children,  who  are  usually  told  to 
"sit  right  there  with  Aunt  Margaret  till  father 
comes  back  from  checking  the  trunks,"  and  who 
often  grow  up  in  abysmal  ignorance  of  what  that 
process  is.  Then  keep  an  eye  open  for  better  oppor- 
tunities. At  a  small  station,  with  a  few  travelers,  if 
the  baggage  master  looks  good-natured  and  unhur- 
ried, enlist  his  help  in  the  matter,  and  let  the  twelve- 


52  SELF-RELIANCE 

year-old,  laboriously  and  intensely  responsible,  actu- 
ally perform  the  operation  of  buying  his  own  ticket, 
seeing  that  the  change  is  correct  and  checking  his  own 
satchel  or  trunk.  It  will  seem  a  great  event  to  him ; 
his  self-confidence  will  be  vastly  augmented  by  see- 
ing that  he  really  can  do  it  himself,  and  it  will  mean 
the  first  step  into  the  capacity  for  clear-headed,  un- 
confused  finding  his  way  about  the  modern  world. 
Another  process  in  modern  life  that  is  usually 
learned  by  young  people  with  awkward,  misdirected 
and  miserably  self-conscious  efforts,  is  the  ordering 
of  a  meal  in  a  hotel  or  restaurant.  This  is  some- 
thing else  that  apartment-hotel  children  might 
very  well  learn  how  to  do  adequately  instead  of  fum- 
bling their  way  into  doing  it  glibly  but  ill.  When- 
ever a  child  is  taken  to  a  public  eating-place  his  at- 
tention should  be  called  to  its  customs.  He  should 
learn  the  difference  between  a  meal  a  la  carte,  and 
those  at  a  fixed  price ;  he  should  have  some  guidance 
and  experience  in  picking  his  path  through  the  jun- 
gle of  expensive  and  indigestible  food  offered;  he 
should  learn  what  sort  of  meals  best  suit  his  own 
stomach  and  his  father's  purse.  He  is  not  too 
young  at  ten  or  twelve  to  be  set  the  task  of  ordering 
a  sensible  meal  which  will  satisfy  him  and  not  be 
extravagant,  and  at  that  age  he  is  still  pliant  enough 
to  yield  to  parental  objections  to  those  dinners  made 
up  of  lobster  salad  and  ice-cream  which  make  the 


APARTMENT    HOTELS  53 

delight  of  adolescents  having  their  first  experience 
with  "boughten  meals."  He  should  have  frequently 
enough  to  outgrow  his  embarrassment,  the  experi- 
ence of  speaking  for  himself,  ordering  his  own  food, 
asking  for  the  bill,  verifying  the  items  and  paying 
for  the  total.  He  might  even  as  well  be  initiated 
into  a  process  fraught  with  uneasiness  to  most 
Americans,  and  learn  about  what  proportion  of  the 
bill  should  be  given  as  a  tip  to  the  waiter,  and  have 
the  courage  of  his  convictions  in  bestowing  it.  A 
child  who  has  several  times  gone  through  all  this 
process  under  the  friendly  eye  of  his  father  or 
mother  with  his  family  to  fall  back  on  in  case  of 
mistake,  is  in  one  more  particular  being  prepared  to 
be  a  competent  self-reliant  citizen  of  the  modern 
world  as  it  is. 


CHAPTER  V 

RAW    MATERIAL 

WHAT  do  we  mean,  exactly,  when  we  say,  as 
we  do  so  many,  many  times,  that  we  want  to 
train  our  children  to  self-help?  Probably  each  of 
us  attaches  a  different  meaning  to  the  phrase.  One 
mother  may  have  an  idea  that  she  wants  her  girls  to 
possess  some  definite,  money-earning  capacity  so 
that  marriage  will  not  be  their  only  means  of  sup- 
port; another  may  feel  that  she  wants  them  to  be 
able  to  keep  house  thoroughly  and  well.  Another 
may  have  a  vague  notion  of  their  developing  the 
mental  independence  to  make  up  their  own  minds 
on  religious  and  political  matters,  and  a  mother  of 
yet  another  intellectual  level  would  be  satisfied  if 
they  could  manage  a  good  appearance  under  all  con- 
ditions. Fathers  vary  as  greatly,  from  desiring  a 
political  success  for  their  sons,  to  wishing  them  to 
become  prosperous  dairy- farmers.  And  yet  every 
one  of  these  varying  interpretations  of  "self-help" 
has  at  least  two  elements  in  common  with  all  the 
others :  the  first  is  the  fact  (not  without  pathos  from 
the  parental  point  of  view)  that  in  all  probability 
the  adult  life  chosen  by  the  son  or  daughter  will 

54 


RAW   MATERIAL  55 

bear  no  relation  whatever  to  the  parent's  dreams 
about  it ;  and  second,  the  fact  that  all  these  dreams, 
divergent  as  they  seem,  are  really  made  of  identical 
stuff.  What  we  all  desire  is  that  our  children  as 
they  come  to  take  up  their  independent  lives,  shall 
be  moved  by  long-established  mental  habit  to  an 
alert,  purposeful,  positive  and  resourceful  attitude 
toward  their  new  problems.  If  they  possess  this 
they  will  succeed  in  any  life  they  choose,  whether 
it  is  our  choice  or  not.  What  we  all  fervently  pray 
may  not  come  to  pass,  is  that  they  shall  submit  them- 
selves passively  to  conditions,  accept  the  first  de- 
feats as  final,  become  the  serfs  instead  of  the  mas- 
ters of  life. 

Now  either  of  these  mental  habits  of  initiative 
or  of  inert  passivity,  is  extremely  pervasive  and 
tinges  all  of  the  consciousness  of  the  individual.  To 
attain  our  goal  of  the  good  habit  established,  we 
must  try  steadily  throughout  the  child's  earlier  life, 
to  steep  him  in  an  atmosphere  colored  throughout 
with  energetic  purposeful  action.  It  is  not  enough 
to  insist  upon  a  few  tasks  performed.  Nothing  is 
enough  which  depends  upon  our  presence,  upon  the 
presence  of  any  adult.  The  influence  at  work  must 
be  ever-present;  the  child  must  be  surrounded  not 
by  commands  and  exhortations  to  do  things  for 
himself,  but  by  irresistible  temptations  to  do  things 
for  himself,  temptations  which  even  the  naturally 


56  SELF-RELIANCE 

slothful  or  sluggish  can  not  resist.  There  is  no  bet- 
ter ally  in  this  campaign  than  raw  materials,  and  no 
more  insidious  foe  than  the  cheap  and  easily  secured 
finished  products  of  our  modern  industrial  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  presence  of  raw  material  stimulates  the  cre- 
ative instinct,  the  noblest  and  most  fertile  of  all  hu- 
man impulses,  and  the  presence  of  finished  products 
stimulates  the  ignoble  instinct  for  personal  posses- 
sion, one  of  the  most  futile  of  human  instincts. 
When  the  grown-up  child  faces  his  own  life,  he 
faces  literally  or  figuratively  a  mass  of  raw  material 
which  nobody  in  the  world  but  he  himself  can  shape 
into  symmetry  and  strength.  A  whole  lifetime  of 
the  habit  of  forcing  raw  material  to  obey  his  will  is 
none  too  good  a  preparation  for  that  enterprise. 
And  he  is  fatally  betrayed  if  he  has  been  allowed 
to  acquire  the  modern  conviction  that  somebody 
else  is  the  one  to  transform  raw  material  into  desir- 
able commodities  which  he  will  then  buy  with  cash, 
and  own  as  inactive  possessions.  If  the  parent  with 
this  clue  in  his  mind  will  look  at  the  very  most  mod- 
ern and  advanced  schools,  he  will  see  that  they  are  all 
trying  to  substitute  raw  material  and  the  impulse  to 
master  it,  to  a  passive  possession  of  finished  prod- 
ucts. And  turning  to  his  own  home  with  that  clue 
in  his  mind  he  may  see  a  path  out  of  many  a  domes- 
tic difficulty,  and  understand  very  much  more  thor- 


RAW   MATERIAL  57 

ouglily  the  need  for  adjuncts  to  the  home  which  had 
seemed  before  in  the  nature  of  frills  and  fads.  The 
carpenter's  bench  for  his  boys  may  seem  to  him  not 
a  bulky  and  rather  expensive  toy,  but  a  step  along 
the  path  which  will  lead  them  to  professional  suc- 
cess when  the  time  comes  for  them  to  construct  a 
tight- jointed  legal  argument  with  the  habit  of  per- 
sistent effort  induced  by  constructing  a  tight-jointed 
box.  The  mother  may  with  more  resignation  allow 
modeling  clay  to  spread  its  messy  smears  over  a 
table  in  the  nursery,  if  she  reasons  that  the  model- 
ing and  baking  and  decorating  of  a  clumsily-shaped 
doll's  tea-set,  may  be  a  rung  in  the  ladder  upon 
which  her  little  daughter  may  mount  to  the  blessed 
habit  of  cheerful  effort  to  obtain  her  desires; 
whereas  the  boughten  tea-set  would  set  another 
stone  in  the  wall  which  tends  to  shut  her  into  the 
dreary  lifeless  habit  of  asking  or  teasing,  or  beg- 
ging somebody  else  to  drop  her  desires,  ready-made, 
into  her  idle  hands. 

Of  course  one  bait  will  not  do  for  all  fish,  and  the 
parent  who  goes  angling  in  his  children's  natures 
for  the  instinct  to  self-help  must  have  as  large  and 
varied  a  set  of  resources  as  the  most  completely 
equipped  fly-fisherman.  What  will  tempt  a  young 
child  to  creating  something  for  himself  will  leave  an 
older  one  untouched ;  and  what  will  move  one  tem- 
perament to  effort _will  mean  nothing  to  another. 


58  SELF-RELIANCE 

Carpenters'  tools  are  excellent  things,  but  one  would 
not  go  far  in  offering  them  to  a  little  girl  with  a 
passion  for  dolls.  The  thing  for  her  is  plenty  of 
cotton-batting  or  bran,  patterns  to  cut  out  dolls  of 
various  sizes,  white  cotton  cloth  to  make  them  of, 
paints  or  crayons  to  color  the  faces,  hanks  of 
darning  cotton  to  make  hair  of,  and  then  a  compen- 
dious rag-bag  with  suggestively  varied  stuffs  to 
clothe  the  ensuing  family  of  dolls,  which  is  apt  to  be 
excessively  numerous.  A  doll-loving  little  girl  who 
is  thus*  provided  with  the  means  to  equip  herself 
with  all  the  family  her  maternal  heart  desires,  big 
and  little,  babies  and  aunties,  and  grandmas  and 
hired  men,  will  spend  little  time  sighing  for  the  ex- 
pensive, elaborately  dressed  bisque  doll  on  exhibi- 
tion in  the  toy-shop — especially  if  she  is  not  often 
taken  to  the  toy-shop ! 

Although  the  question  of  shopping  is  taken  up  at 
length  elsewhere  in  this  book,  a  special  phase  of  it 
needs  mention  in  connection  with  the  prominence 
given  to  raw  materials.  If  one  indulges  one's  self  in 
the  pernicious  habit  of  "shopping"  that  consists  in 
a  covetous  mouth-watering,  heart-burning  sojourn 
among  objects  too  costly  to  buy,  or  in  careless  yield- 
ing to  the  temptation  to  buy,  there  are  other  reasons 
than  the  mere  financial  one  for  not  habituating  the 
children  to  the  same  baleful  influences.  For  you 
can  not  expect  them  to  retain  their  interest  in  raw 


RAW   MATERIAL  59 

materials  if  their  impressionable  minds  are  stunned 
and  stupefied  by  the  vast  numbers  of  finished  prod- 
ucts which  it  is  the  main  business  of  a  well-organ- 
ized industrial  society  to  produce.  Children  should 
spend  as  little  of  their  precious  youth  as  possible 
hankering  after  ready-made  possessions,  and  as 
much  time  as  possible  creating  for  themselves  the 
things  they  desire.  What  buying  the  children  do 
should  be  from  the  first  largely,  almost  exclusively, 
of  objects  which  are  to  be  used  either  to  wear,  to 
produce  something,  or  as  means  to  learn  dexterity 
(games,  sleds,  roller-skates).  As  soon  as  they  be- 
gin to  be  old  enough  to  understand  relative  prices, 
they  should  begin  to  some  extent  to  buy  their  own 
raw  material,  and  for  some  suggestions  on  that 
process,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  chapter  on 
"Shopping." 

To  give  an  exhaustive  list  of  the  raw  materials 
that  children  might  use  to  advantage  would  be  to 
give  a  list  as  long  and  comprehensive  as  the  tariff 
schedules.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  they  should 
all  be  heaped  on  the  playroom  shelves  at  one  time. 
It  means  that  day  by  day,  as  the  children  develop 
needs  and  wishes,  they  should  be  furnished  the  raw 
materials  to  satisfy  them.  There  is  a  remark  very 
familiar  to  parental  ears,  "Oh,  I  wish  we  had  a 
play-house !" — or  a  toboggan  slide,  or  a  basket-ball 
outfit,  or  a  shelf  in  the  porch,  or  what  not — and  the 


60  SELF-RELIANCE 

wise  parent  makes  answer  to  this,  "Well,  let's  see  if 
we  can't  make  one." 

Such  a  suggestion,  of  course,  will  bring  few  re- 
sults unless  the  children  have  the  habit  of  self-help, 
and  unless  both  tools  and  raw  materials  for  the  work 
are  at  hand.  Parents  must  always  bear  in  mind 
that  the  less  skilful  the  workman,  the  better  must  be 
his  outfit;  and  they  must  not  be  discouraged  if  their 
children  fail  to  conquer  difficulties  for  them  over- 
mastering. An  old  story  (it  is  told  about  a  number 
of  eminent  violinists)  bears  on  this  point.  During 
the  maestro's  absence  a  joker  among  his  pupils  hid 
his  cherished  Stradivarius  and  put  in  its  place  an 
old  battered  fiddle.  The  maestro  returned,  and, 
without  showing  that  he  had  noticed  the  substitu- 
tion, held  the  class  spellbound  with  the  glorious 
tones  he  drew  from  the  dilapidated  old  instrument. 
My  point  is  that  none  of  his  pupils  could  have  done 
the  like:  it  was  all  they  could  do  to  produce  even 
passable  tone  from  a  good  violin :  with  a  poor  one 
their  squeaking  would  have  been  agonizing.  So 
with  the  children's  occupations.  Remember  that  for 
untrained  fingers  it  is  difficult  to  make  a  shipshape 
job  even  under  the  best  of  conditions.  If  the  chil- 
dren are  cutting  paper  or  cloth,  try  to  have  a  sharp 
pair  of  shears  to  lend  them.  If  they  are  making 
paper  houses,  buy  them  some  fresh  manila  paper — 


RAW   MATERIAL  61 

it  is  cheap.  Don't  ask  them  to  get  along  with  flimsy 
newspaper  or  with  wrapping  paper  already  used  and 
crumpled. 

If  you  give  the  boys  a  set  of  tools  don't  select 
them  from  a  "marked-down"  counter  of  a  depart- 
ment store.  A  hammer,  a  square,  a  two- foot  rule, 
a  saw  (two  saws — a  rip-saw  and  a  hand-saw  are 
better),  a  plane  and  a  chisel,  all  made  of  good  ma- 
terial, would  be  better  than  an  elaborate  but  poorly 
made  set.  Other  tools  will  be  handy,  but  they  can 
be  bought  later  if  the  boy's  interest  warrants  it. 
Such  a  set  of  tools  need  not  cost  so  much  as  is  some- 
times paid  for  it.  Small  dealers  often  ask  the  full 
manufacturer's  list  price  for  tools,  but  large  hard- 
ware firms  and  the  mail-order  houses  sell  far  below 
the  list,  and  still  make  a  profit.  Tools,  however,  are 
not  enough.  The  boy  must  have  some  place  to 
work.  If  there  is  no  room  that  can  be  spared  for 
a  shop,  let  him  use  some  other  room  during  certain 
hours.  A  large  rug  of  canvas,  denim  or  some  other 
smooth  strong  material  can  be  laid  down  to  catch 
the  sawdust  and  shavings  and  help  to  make  easier 
the  cleaning  up  afterward.  It  is  only  fair,  of 
course,  that  all  litter  should  be  removed  by  those 
who  make  it,  nevertheless  we  parents  must  not  for- 
get that  we  want  the  children  to  play,  and  we  must 
try  to  make  the  tonic  and  necessary  putting  things 


62  SELF-RELIANCE 

to  rights  after  the  play  hour  easy  enough  so  that 
anticipation  of  it  does  not  hold  the  children  back 
from  the  pure  pleasure  of  the  play  itself. 

Another  adjunct  necessary  to  make  a  set  of  tools 
of  service  is  some  sort  of  bench.  This  may  be 
bought  ready-made,  or  if  nails  can  be  driven  and 
the  bench  left  permanently  in  one  place,  it  can  be 
built  much  more  cheaply  by  a  carpenter.  The  es- 
sentials are:  that  it  shall  be  of  a  suitable  height 
(about  as  high  above  the  ground  as  the  user's  hip- 
joint  is  the  rough-and-ready  formula)  ;  that  it  shall 
be  furnished  with  a  vise  and  perhaps  with  a  bench 
stop,  for  since  the  tools  will  be  held  with  uncertain 
fingers,  the  wood  must  be  held  very  firmly. 

Besides  tools,  a  room  to  work  with  and  a  bench 
to  work  on,  a  carpenter  needs  materials  to  work 
with,  and  it  is  here  that  parents  are  often  lacking  in 
foresight.  They  say  sadly,  "Yes,  Willie  has  an  ex- 
pensive set  of  tools,  but  he  doesn't  seem  to  care  to 
use  them,"  when  often  Willie  has  never  had  any- 
thing to  try  his  tools  on  except  old  box-boards 
(which  do  well  enough  for  rough  construction,  but 
which,  knotty  and  cross-grained  as  they  are,  can  not 
be  made  to  take  a  smooth  finish)  and  nothing  to 
fasten  his  work  except  heavy  nails  or  tacks.  Give 
Willie  a  few  boards  of  pine  or  whitewood  or  chest" 
nut  anywhere  from  one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an 
inch  in  thickness  and  two  or  three  pounds  of  wire 


RAW   MATERIAL  63 

nails  in  assorted  sizes  (such  packages  are  on  the 
tnarket ;  both  nails  and  screws  can  be  had  in  assorted 
sizes  from  the  large  mail-order  houses  and  probably 
from  some  hardware  stores)  and  the  chances  are 
that  he  will  take  a  sudden  and  surprising  interest  in 
his  tools. 

Lastly,  remember  that  tools  grow  dull  quickly 
'(planes  and  chisels  are  usually  dull  when  bought) 
and  that  sharpening  them  is  more  difficult  than 
using  them.  You  are  hardly  giving  your  boy  a  fair 
chance  unless  you  have  him  taught  to  sharpen  all 
his  tools,  and  while  he  is  learning  (it  will  take  him 
a  long  time  before  he  can  file  a  saw)  see  to  it  that 
some  older  workman  keeps  the  boy's  tools  in  work- 
able condition. 

As  I  have  said  so  many  times,  don't  be  discour- 
aged if  your  scheme  falls  through — try  another! 
It  may  be  that  Willie  after  all  your  efforts  will 
make  little  use  of  his  tools.  Perhaps  he  has  no  me- 
chanical gift;  but  perhaps  he  is  merely  not  inter- 
ested in  woodwork.  Don't  give  up  on  handwork 
until  you  have  tried  some  other  branches.  Consult 
the  list  of  handbooks  which  is  given  at  the  end  of 
the  Boy  Scout's  Manual  and  with  its  help  try  to 
think  of  other  things  that  Willie  may  be  inter- 
ested in. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  the  caution  that 
the  rule  that  children  should  themselves  construct  the 


64  SELF-RELIANCE 

things  they  desire,  needs  to  be  applied,  like  all  other 
rules,  with  the  assistance  of  common  sense.  It  would 
be  an  impossibly  difficult  undertaking  for  an  eight- 
year-old  to  construct  his  own  flexible  flier,  and  yet 
the  well-developed  boy  of  fourteen  who  has  ac- 
quired the  taste  for  using  tools,  prizes  a  sled  of  his 
own  making  much  more  than  a  ready-made  one.  A 
tent  is  an  indispensable  adjunct  to  the  proper  bring- 
ing-up  of  boys,  but  whether  or  not  it  needs  to  be 
bought  outright  depends  on  the  age  of  the  boys.  If 
a  good  book  of  instruction  be  procured  (any  refer- 
ence librarian  can  give  you  four  or  five  such  books 
about  outdoor  life)  most  boys  immensely  enjoy 
studying  out  the  patterns  for  different  styles  of 
tents ;  cutting  and  sewing  on  their  own,  and  apply- 
ing the  water-proofing  themselves.  This  is  a  long, 
messy  and  untidy  job,  before  which  any  neat  house- 
keeper justifiably  quails;  but  the  neatest  of  house- 
keepers with  brains  and  the  capacity  for  observation 
must  admit  that  the  absorbed  interest  and  patient 
application  of  the  boys  is  a  sight  even  more 
agreeable  than  an  immaculately  orderly  room.  And 
they  could  have  no  more  valuable  experience  than 
to  have  converted  a  flat  bale  of  canvas  into  a  serv- 
iceable shelter  from  the  rain.  Every  such  successful 
mastery  of  raw  material,  means  more  well-founded 
courage  and  self-confidence  in  the  shaping  of  life 
itself. 


RAW   MATERIAL  65 

Take  another  instance  to  illustrate  how  wide  is 
the  range  of  "raw  materials"  to  be  brought  into 
play.  A  family  of  boys,  fascinated  by  soldiers,  as 
we  all  are  in  these  days  of  horrified  concentration 
on  the  Great  War,  and  presented  with  a  set  of  toy- 
soldiers,  were  led  away  from  blood-thirsty  repro- 
ductions of  actual  battles  by  the  construction  in  the 
back  yard  of  a  large  and  complete  permanent  camp 
for  their  army,  with  rows  of  circular  tents  of  mus- 
lin, with  home-manufactured  cooking-centers,  with 
proper  drainage  insured,  with  sufficient  water-sup- 
ply, with  the  right  kind  of  accommodation  for 
horses  and  mules — an  elaborate  enterprise  which 
lasted  for  several  days,  which  was  accompanied  by 
much  studying  of  all  available  information  about 
the  best  modern  camps,  and  which  left  the  boys 
with  a  considerable  notion  of  the  principles  of 
hygienically  caring  for  a  large  body  of  men;  and 
more  to  the  point  in  the  matter  of  self-help,  with 
another  accretion  added  to  their  trained  habit  of 
finding  their  enjoyment  in  activity  and  accomplish- 
ment. 

Just  as  this  "temptation"  to  creation  should  be  in 
the  parent's  mind,  when  he  considers  every  home 
enterprise  of  the  children,  so  he  should  remember  it 
in  every  purchase.  In  buying  paper-doll  sets,  do 
not  buy  those  already  dressed :  buy  the  variety 
which  has  patterns  and  a  seductive  array  of  crepe- 


66  SELF-RELIANCE 

paper  fabrics  and  trimmings  for  the  manufacture 
of  toilets.  Buy  raffia  and  instruction  for  simple 
(basketry  rather  than  the  pretty  baskets  themselves. 
Make  a  scrap-book  of  suggestions,  read  or  heard, 
for  things  of  home  manufacture.  Get  a  recipe  for 
making  papier-mache  pulp  out  of  newspapers  and 
glue,  and  show  the  children  how  to  decorate  and 
gild  photograph  frames.  If  home-dramatics  are 
imminent,  and  they  should  always  be  imminent  in 
every  well-run  home,  stage  properties,  costumes  and 
wigs  are  famous  incentives  to  activity  and  effort. 
Too  few  children  know  the  joys  and  fascinations  of 
the  dye-pot,  the  miraculous  way  in  which  five-cent 
unbleached  cheese-cloth  can  be  transformed  into 
rainbow-tinted  draperies  for  home-fairies,  in  which 
corn-husks  or  raffia,  or  rags,  or  feathers  are  glori- 
fied into  fabrics  irresistibly  tempting  to  handle  and 
fashion.  Have  on  hand  as  a  matter  of  course,  just 
as  you  have  bread,  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  the 
more  familiar  raw  materials,  tools,  odd  bits  of 
board  and  pasteboard,  dye,  tissue-paper,  glue,  paste, 
scissors,  modeling  clay,  tacks,  gilding,  water  colors, 
paper  of  all  kinds,  crayons,  sewing  materials,  etc., 
etc.  All  this  formidable  sounding  list  costs  less  to 
buy  than  one  elaborately  dressed  doll,  and  outlasts 
her  by  many  months. 

And    finally,    since    imaginative    resourcefulness 
is  one  of  the  most  important  components  of  the  ca- 


RAW   MATERIAL  67 

pacity  for  self-reliance,  give  the  child's  imagination 
an  occasional  fillip  by  the  presentation  of  some  un- 
usual material.  "Here's  an  old  straw  hat  of  your 
father's.  Do  you  children  want  to  soak  it  and  rip  it 
apart  and  see  if  you  can  make  anything  with  it?" 
"The  people  next  door  have  moved  away  and  left  a 
great  big  packing  box.  How  would  you  little  folks 
like  to  drag  it  over  here  and  see  what  you  could 
play  with  it?" 

It  may  end  as  a  pirate's  ship  with  a  black  flag,  or 
a  hospital  ward  filled  with  sick  dolls,  but  in  either 
case  it  has  been  a  stepping-stone  to  that  brisk,  alert, 
self-confident  and  imaginative  attitude  toward  life, 
which  far  more  than  moral  exhortation,  is  the  secret 
of  self-reliance. 

FOR   REFERENCE 

American  Boys'  Handy  Book,  Beard  (Scribner). 

American  Girls'  Handy  Book,  Lina  and  A.  B. 
Beard  (Scribner). 

Art  Crafts  for  Beginners,  F.  G.  Sanford  (Cen- 
tury). 

Beginning  Woodwork  at  Home  and  in  School, 
C.  S.  Van  Deusen,  E.  V.  Lawrence  (Manual  Arts 
Press,  Peoria  111.). 

Boy  Electrician,  A.  P.  Morgan  (Lothrop). 

Little  Folks'  Handy  Book,  Lina  and  A.  B.  Beard 
(Scribner). 


68  SELF-RELIANCE 

Occupations  for  Little  Fingers,  Elizabeth  Sage 
and  Anna  Cooky  (Scribner). 

Toy-Making  at  Home,  Morley  Adams  (Stokes 
&Co.). 

Girls'  Make-at-Home  Things,  Carolyn  S.  Bailey 
( Stokes  &  Co.). 

Manual  Training  Toys  for  Boys'  Workshop, 
Harris  W.  Moore  (Manual  Arts  Press). 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ROBINSON  CRUSOE  INSTINCT 

ABOUT  two  hundred  years  ago,  a  hard-driven 
./JL  literary  hack,  writing  with  desperate  fluency 
on  any  topic  that  came  to  hand,  hit  upon  a  theme 
which  has  made  his  memory  immortal ;  and  in  writ- 
ing the  story  of  a  shipwrecked  sailor  wrote  his  own 
name  forever  upon  the  tablets  of  renown.  That 
story  is  neither  better  nor  worse  written  than  much 
else  of  Defoe's  voluminous  production.  Its  instant 
and  lasting  success  came  from  the  fact  that  Defoe 
had  chanced  to  write  about  a  situation  which  rouses 
and  always  will  rouse  interest  in  every  healthy  hu- 
man being,  the  situation  of  a  man  thrown  wholly 
on  his  own  resources  and  struggling  more  or  less 
successfully  to  achieve  his  desires  by  means  of  his 
own  strength  and  intelligence.  Every  one  of  us  to 
some  degree  is  a  Robinson  Crusoe,  mustering  all 
our  forces  to  conquer  circumstances,  and  this  sym- 
bolism though  not  consciously  realized  by  most 
readers,  accounts  for  the  extreme  and  sympathetic 
interest  with  which  we  all  follow  tales  of  desert 
islands  and  castaways. 

69 


70  SELF-RELIANCE 

Now,  children  are  in  many  respects  but  adults 
who  have  not  grown  a  thickened  skin,  who  are  more 
helplessly  responsive  to  circumstance  than  they  will 
be  in  later  life,  and  who  are  more  surely  stimulated 
by  suggestions  from  the  outside.  The  Robinson 
Crusoe  instinct  is  not  far  below  the  skin  in  any  one, 
even  a  very  busy,  preoccupied  adult.  In  a  child  it 
is  almost  always  already  present,  already  longing 
for  exercise.  And  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  definite 
manifestations  of  the  capacity  for  self-reliance,  it 
is  one  we  can  most  surely  depend  upon  for  purposes 
of  child-training.  The  most  waited-upon  and  serv- 
ant-spoiled child  can  be  aroused  to  initiative  by  an 
artfully  administered  dose  of  desert-island,  and  for 
ordinary  normal  children  the  device  is  of  never- 
failing  usefulness  and  convenience. 

Of  course  the  most  ingenious  parent  can  not  con- 
coct a  desert  island  in  a  city  apartment,  but  leaving 
out  of  account  that  last  resort  for  family  life,  there 
are  few  other  conditions  which  can  not  be  made  to 
yield  up  some  sort  of  Robinson  Crusoe  background. 
Even  for  the  apartment-dwellers,  innumerable  in- 
genious and  able  minds  have  provided  satisfactory 
substitutes.  What,  if  not  varied,  appeals  to  one 
form  or  another  of  the  Robinson  Crusoe  instinct, 
are  the  boys'  and  girls'  summer  camps,  which  flour- 
ish everywhere  in  the  United  States,  the  Boy-Scout 
movement,  the  teaching  of  woodcraft,  the  Camp- 


ROBINSON    CRUSOE    INSTINCT       71 

fifQ  Girls.  But  we  need  not  wait  until  the  children  are 
old  enough  to  go  away  to  a  summer  camp :  we  need 
not  have  the  money  for  one  of  those  rather  expen- 
sive institutions,  nor  need  the  Robinson  Crusoe  call 
to  alert  self-reliance  and  mastery  of  nature  be  re- 
stricted to  four  or  six  weeks  in  the  year.  Any  child 
old  enough  to  walk  four  miles  (and  any  healthy 
child  of  six  should  be  able  to  do  this)  is  old  enough 
to  have  frequent  tastes  of  Robinson  Crusoeing.  A 
weekly  or  bi-weekly  careful  planning  and  prepara- 
tion of  outfit  and  food,  a  walk  to  suit  the  capacities 
of  the  youngest,  an  encampment  of  an  hour  or  two, 
while  the  stronger  legs  go  farther  in  exploration,  a 
meal  well-cooked  outdoors,  the  camping-place  left 
in  good  condition,  the  return  with  trophies  for  the 
home  collection — this  is  a  different  program  from 
the  profitless,  somnolent  nodding  over  Sunday 
newspapers  after  a  heavy  dinner  which  represents  a 
too  common  method  of  spending  the  precious  hours 
together  of  a  day  of  rest. 

It  is  even  very  different  from  the  children  gathered 
at  the  mother's  knee  while  she  reads  aloud  an  edify- 
ing book,  which  is  the  seldom-realized  ideal  of  the 
generation  which  brought  us  up.  But  it  is  a  pro- 
gram which  fits  modern  American  children  almost 
invariably,  and  which  easily,  simply  and  naturally, 
brings  them  into  contact  with  the  bracing  and  tonic 
obstacles  obligingly  furnished  by  Nature  and  the 


72  SELF-RELIANCE 

weather  whenever  those  great  teachers  are  sought 
out.  The  changing  seasons  furnish  variety  enough 
and,  uninteresting  though  the  region  may  seem  at  a 
superficial  glance,  there  is  not  a  square  foot  of  our 
Mother  Earth  which  will  not  furnish  delight  and 
profit  to  any  sensitive  growing  nature,  when  ac- 
quaintance with  it  becomes  intensive.  For  healthy 
children,  if  suitable  clothing  be  provided,  there  is 
almost  no  weather  that  is  unsuitable  for  such  an 
expedition.  (And  suitable  clothing  for  such  circum- 
stances is  more  essential  than  suitable  clothing  for 
dancing  school,  if  one  must  choose!)  In  fact  bad 
weather  adds  a  keen  edge  of  enjoyment  to  Rob- 
inson Crusoeing;  and  any  child  is  to  be  pitied 
who  has  not  helped  in  the  defeating  of  a  rain-storm, 
in  the  construction  of  a  temporary  shelter,  in  the 
defiant  lighting  of  a  fire,  and  in  the  successful  prep- 
aration and  comfortable  consumption  of  savory 
food,  secured  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  all 
the  elements.  The  child  does  not  live,  who,  properly 
equipped  and  led,  would  not  enjoy  such  an  experi- 
ence; and  he  enjoys  it  because  it  arouses  in  him  the 
sturdy  determination  to  achieve  his  purpose  which 
we  call  self-reliance,  and  which  we  rightly  consider 
one  of  the  most  vital  elements  in  the  happiness  and 
worth  of  human  life. 

To  be  sure,  all  this  can  be  done,  more  formally 
with  more  definite  organization  by  some  of  the 


ROBINSON   CRUSOE   INSTINCT       73 

modern  substitutes  for  parents — such  as  the  Boy 
Scouts.  But  I  do  not  see  why  the  realization  of  the 
value  of  outdoor  life  as  a  means  of  arousing  self- 
reliance  should  necessarily  be  another  factor  for  the 
alienation  of  the  child  from  his  family.  Why  should 
it  not  be,  instead,  a  new  factor  for  the  cementing 
together  of  the  family?  If  outdoors  is  one  of  the 
best  places  for  a  child  to  learn  valuable  lessons,  why 
should  not  his  family  follow  him  there,  and 
strengthen  the  family  tie  by  sharing  with  him  the 
stimulating  new  experience?  It  will  certainly  do 
them  no  harm.  And  it  is  doubtful  if  an  afternoon  of 
bridge,  or  dancing,  or  swathed  and  passive  progress 
in  an  automobile,  or  even  of  tea  and  conversation,  is 
of  any  more  value  to  them,  to  the  child,  to  the 
world,  than  an  afternoon  of  cross-country  tramp- 
ing, with  a  hasty  but  well-made  encampment  to  the 
accompaniment  of  bacon  broiled  over  the  coals,  and 
a  camp-made  flapjack  or  two. 

From  this  rudimentary  beginning  of  impromptu 
"family  hikes"  there  will  inevitably  branch  out 
many  new  interests  and  influences,  all  of  them  lead- 
ing straight  toward  the  habit  of  self-reliance,  and 
garnering  as  they  go,  the  goodly  habit  of  comrade- 
ship between  parent  and  child.  Why  wait  until  one 
can  have  money  enough  and  the  child  is  old  enough 
to  send  away  from  home  to  a  formally  organized 
camp  before  calling  in  the  Robinson  Crusoe  in- 


74  SELF-RELIANCE 

stinct?  Nowadays,  with  rapid  transit  everywhere 
installed,  even  city  dwellers  are  but  a  short  distance 
from  the  country,  and  for  our  purposes  one  kind  of 
country  is  quite  as  good  as  another. 

Any  spot  that  has  the  sky  overhead  and  the 
earth  beneath  is  a  happy  hunting-ground  where 
parents  can  successfully  lead  their  children  forth 
into  the  flight  away  from  modern  habits  of  passivity 
and  possession,  toward  the  age-old  impulses  to 
activity  and  endeavor.  And  there  is  no  need  for 
elaborate  preparation.  This  very  afternoon,  armed 
with  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  pound  of  bacon,  one  can 
take  the  children  by  the  hand  and  walk  out  of  the 
twentieth  century  back  into  the  Stone  Age. 

After  the  beginning,  the  children  will  see  to  it 
that  the  adventure  develops  properly.  There  will 
be  a  call  for  equipment,  which  can  be  made  the  oc- 
casion for  successful  wrestle  with  raw  material. 
There  will  ensue  a  study  of  woodcraft  books,  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  various  makes  of  knapsacks,  an  ex- 
haustive investigation  of  balloon-silk  tents,  lore  as 
to  setting  up  brush  shelters,  the  invaluable  pages  of 
the  Boy  Scout  Manual  will  be  thumbed  thin  by  boys 
and  girls  alike  with  a  zest  heightened  immeasurably 
by  the  fact  that  father  and  mother  are  interested 
too. 

If  the  region  has  been  mapped  by  the  United 
States  Geologic  Survey,  many  evenings  will  be  spent 


ROBINSON   CRUSOE   INSTINCT       75 

poring  over  those  invaluable  and  inexpensive  sheets, 
tracing  on  them  the  route  of  the  last  tramp — 
"Yes,  this  must  be  where  we  left  the  road — just 
after  the  cross-road — you  remember!  Here  is 
where  we  crossed  the  brook  on  stepping-stones.  Up 
that  hill  through  a  birch  wood  to  the  cliffs !  The  cold 
spring  must  be  about  half-way  up  the  next  hill — bet- 
ter put  a  cross  on  the  map ;  we  can  lunch  there  next 
week  and  then  strike  out  into  the  hilly  country  to 
the  north."  Or  if  no  such  minutely  accurate  maps 
are  available,  the  children  can  take  the  best  map  they 
can  get,  trace  it  on  architect's  paper  (or  on  butter- 
paper,  or  on  the  thin  glazed  paper  sold  at  five-  and 
ten-cent  stores  for  wrapping  up  luncheons)  and  see 
what  they  themselves  can  do  toward  filling  in  the 
details.  This  is  a  difficult  task  and  the  children  will 
do  well  if  they  even  approximate  the  truth.  But  the 
attempt  will  marvelously  quicken  their  observation 
of  nature,  and  keep  up  their  interest  week  after 
week  in  exploring  to  the  last  ant-hill  the  same  bit  of 
country. 

Then  as  the  institution  of  the  regular  family  "hike" 
continues  there  may  grow  up  some  permanent  fea- 
tures. A  good-natured  farmer  who  would  warn  off 
a  group  of  boys  alone,  may,  because  the  parents  are 
present,  lease  a  half-acre  of  his  land  for  the  erection 
of  a  family  camp  on  it — not  an  architect-planned 
and  contractor-built  camp — not  even  a  carpenter- 


76  SELF-RELIANCE 

built  camp;  but  a  family-built  camp,  constructed 
of  odd  materials  that  stimulate  the  ingenuity,  and 
put  together  as  a  thrilling  adventure  into  an  un- 
familiar effort.  No  matter  if  when  it  is  finished  it 
looks  like  the  patched  and  shambling  temporary 
cabin  of  a  foreign  ditch-digger,  or  still  more  prob- 
ably like  the  crazy  shelter  put  up  of  old  tin  roof- 
ing and  fence-boards  by  a  "gang"  of  boys,  those 
sinister  gathering-places  of  uncared-for  adoles- 
cents, which  are  rightly  regarded  with  such  appre- 
hension by  parents  and  reformers.  It  may  look  like 
such  a  shelter,  but  it  is  in  reality  the  surest  guar- 
antee against  the  baleful  "gang"  influence.  A  boy 
whose  family  have  always  been  his  "gang"  needs 
and  will  seek  no  other. 

Although  it  is  mildly  puzzling  to  adults  that  chil- 
dren should  have  a  great  affection  for  such  a  ram- 
shackle construction  of  their  own,  and  more  interest 
and  pride  in  putting  up  a  rough  shelf  there  than  in 
keeping  in  order  the  pleasant  rooms  of  the  family 
home,  the  fact  remains  that  they  all  do,  that  their 
ingenuity  and  imaginative  resourcefulness  are  irre- 
sistibly stimulated  to  loving  and  potent  effort  by 
that  cheerless  interior.  Children  who  are  used  at 
home  to  the  debilitating  attentions  of  a  maid,  who 
do  not  even  button  their  own  shoes,  will  labor  with 
untiring  joy  over  the  construction  of  an  outdoor 
fireplace,  and  preside  proudly  thereafter  at  the  out- 


ROBINSON   CRUSOE   INSTINCT       77 

door  cooking  of  food.  And  normal  children,  with 
their  capacity  for  self-help  untarnished  by  bad  in- 
fluences, breathe  the  free  air  of  such  primitive  ex- 
periences with  never-failing  delight. 

Again  from  this  rudimentary  beginning  of  a 
family  camp,  the  children,  if  left  unhampered,  will 
evolve  innumerable  lively  variations  on  the  theme, 
just  as  they  evolved  the  camp  from  the  bare  Sunday 
afternoon  walk.  Ten  to  one,  if  the  ground  is  at  all 
workable  they  will  dig  a  cave.  The  man  who  said 
that  no  adult  ever  amounted  to  anything  who  had 
not  in  childhood  played  in  a  hole-in-the-ground,  ex- 
aggerated— but  not  much.  They  will  have  a  com- 
plicated system  of  signals  before  approaching  the 
cave,  with  an  outlet  for  the  smoke  to  puzzle  their 
"enemies,"  and  they  will  eat  very  smoky  bacon 
cooked  over  that  badly  burning  fire,  and  they  will 
have  stones  in  their  shoes  and  sand  in  their  hair 
and  in  their  hearts  a  dawning  confidence  in  the 
power  of  the  human  will,  their  own  will,  to  enforce 
its  desire  upon  brute  matter. 

If  there  is  a  tree  at  hand  big  enough,  they  will 
have  a  tree-dwelling  and  a  rope-ladder,  and  a  home- 
made canvas  roof.  And  no  matter  what  the  sur- 
rounding country  is,  they  will  soon  have  a  knowl- 
edge of  it,  and  a  command  of  its  resources  which 
will  go  far  toward  enabling  them  to  rally  them- 
selves to  a  knowledge  and  command  of  any  situa- 


78  SELF-RELIANCE 

tion  of  later  life.  Every  repetition  of  an  explora- 
tion and  mastery  of  new  conditions,  leads  the  child 
away  from  the  babyish  mental  attitude  toward  the 
world,  which  is  to  run  to  the  nearest  approach  to  a 
mother  present  and  hide  his  face  in  her  skirt,  and 
toward  the  fully  grown  mental  attitude  which  is  of 
intelligent  curiosity  and  self-confidence.  The  aim  of 
the  wise  parent  is  to  free  the  child  from  his  natural, 
cat-in-a-strange-garret  apprehension  of  unknown 
disaster  in  new  surroundings,  and  change  this  to  a 
knowledge  that  general  laws  are  universal,  and  that 
the  same  intelligence,  courage  and  application,  which 
he  knows  from  experience  will  solve  one  set  of  prob- 
lems, will  go  far  toward  solving  any  other  problems 
that  he  will  ever  meet  in  the  course  of  his  life. 

FOR   REFERENCE 

Camping  for  Boys,  H.  W.  Gibson  (International 
Committee  Y.  M.  C.  A.). 

The  Book  of  Camping  and  Woodcraft,  H.  Kep- 
heart  (Outing  Publishing  Co.). 

Harper's  Outdoor  Book  for  Boys,  J.  H.  Adams. 
(Harper). 

Vacation  Camping  for  Girls,  Jeannette  Marks 
(Appleton). 

American  Boy  Scout  Manual  (200  Fifth  Ave- 
nue, New  York.) 


ROBINSON   CRUSOE    INSTINCT       79 

Handbook  for  Camp-Fire  Girls  (118  East  Twen- 
ty-eighth Street,  New  York  City). 

Harper's  Handbook  for  Young  Naturalists,  A. 
Hyatt  Verrill  (Harper). 

Our  Bird  Comrades,  L.  S.  Keyser  (Rand-Mc- 
Nally). 

The  Wild-Flower  Book  for  Young  People,  Alice 
Lounsberry  (Stokes). 

How  to  Know  the  Wild-Flowers,  Mrs.  W.  S. 
Dana  (Scribner). 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOCIAL  SELF-RELIANCE 

THE  word  "social"  in  this  chapter  heading  and 
throughout  the  chapter  is  meant  to  convey  the 
old-fashioned  Victorian  parlor  and  dinner-party 
significance  which  sounds  narrow  and  archaic 
enough  to  our  modern  ears,  used  to  hearing  the 
word  employed  in  its  wider  civic  sense.  Just  as  the 
word  itself  sounds  a  trifle  out  of  date  and  narrow- 
minded,  the  life  it  denotes  is  one  so  out  of  favor 
with  sober-minded  people  that  a  certain  amount  of 
courage  is  required  for  a  twentieth-century  author 
to  treat  it  seriously  enough  to  devote  a  chapter  to  it. 
I  hasten  to  say  at  once,  before  the  thoughtful  reader 
turns  away,  that  I  do  not  at  all  advocate  a  dancing- 
school  training  in  formal  manners  for  our  ordinary 
democratic  American  children,  who  are  (we  hope) 
to  grow  into  earnest  citizens  of  the  Republic,  too 
intent  on  important  matters  to  be  concerned  with 
the  exact  width  of  a  handkerchief  hem  or  the  exact 
fork  to  be  used  for  eating  game.  On  the  other 
hand  even  a  twentieth-century  dweller,  if  he  is  not 
so  young  as  to  have  had  no  experience  of  the  real 

80 


SOCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE  81 

world,  must  recognize  that  human  lives,  even  very 
earnest  human  lives,  are  colored  to  a  singularly 
large  extent  by  what  takes  place  in  their  hours  of 
recreation;  that  helplessness  and  lack  of  resource 
and  initiative  in  the  matter  of  pleasant  social  inter- 
course are  apt  to  be  punished  by  a  more  or  less  com- 
plete isolation,  and  that  isolation  is  not  a  condition 
favorable  to  normal  human  development  or  useful- 
ness. 

So  with  some  misgivings  about  being  misunder- 
stood, and  considered  frivolous,  the  author  of  a 
book  on  self-reliance  and  responsibility  includes  a 
chapter  on  the  social  life  of  children.  The  very 
phrase  is  sure  to  meet  with  objections.  Should  chil- 
dren have  any  social  life?  Do  they  not,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  have  altogether  too  much  of  it  already? 
Would  it  not  be  better  for  parents  to  give  all  their 
energies  to  an  attempt  to  stem  the  tide  of  ever- 
increasing  "social  life,"  which  wears  out  our  chil- 
dren to-day  ? 

Once  when  I  was  a  student  in  Germany,  I  was 
walking  with  some  friends  through  a  rural  district 
on  a  clear,  bright  September  afternoon.  In  a  little 
village  we  stopped  for  a  drink  of  water,  and  as  we 
drank,  we  pricked  up  our  young  ears  at  the  sound 
of  music.  It  was  the  harvest  dance,  somebody  told 
us,  over  there  in  that  big  building,  a  barn  or  store- 
house of  some  sort.  We  made  our  way  there  and 


82  SELF-RELIANCE 

saw  one  of  the  cheer fulest  sights  I  ever  beheld — 
an  assemblage  of  farmers  and  their  families,  eating 
and  drinking  before  the  door,  under  the  shade  of 
the  trees,  while,  inside,  their  young  folks  danced 
heartily  and  joyfully  to  the  music  of  two  fiddles  and 
a  flute.  All  the  big  doors  and  windows  were  open. 
The  sweet  country  breeze  sent  its  pure  invigorating 
breath  through  that  impromptu  ballroom,  and  it 
was  to  the  honest  light  of  common  day  that  those 
red-cheeked  lads  and  lasses  were  whirling  one  an- 
other about.  One  of  them,  with  a  pleasant  friendli- 
ness invited  me  to  dance,  and  in  a  moment  I  was 
whirling  with  them.  The  experience  made  a  pro- 
found impression  on  my  mind.  For  many  years  I 
had  "been  going  to  dances,"  as  the  phrase  runs,  but 
never  had  I  known  that  dancing  could  be  so  much 
fun.  That  was  years  before  the  dancing  craze,  and 
dances  were  always  formal  evening  affairs,  whereas 
about  this  festival  there  was  an  indescribable  ab- 
sence of  the  tension,  the  nervous  excitement  which 
I  had  always  thought  was  an  integral  part  of  a  ball, 
but  which,  as  I  danced  then,  in  the  late  afternoon 
sunlight,  I  felt  to  be  as  burdensome  as  it  was  un- 
necessary. Why  wait  till  late  in  the  evening,  one's 
usual  bedtime,  before  beginning  to  dance?  Why 
always  precede  the  delight  of  rhythmic  activity 
by  a  troublesome  change  to  one's  most  elaborate 
dress  and  least  comfortable  foot-gear?  Why,  in 


SOCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE  83 

short,  be  so  dependent  upon  the  machinery  of  cere- 
monial for  joy-in-common?  The  wide-spread  furor 
for  the  dance  resulting  in  light-hearted  dancing 
any-  and  everywhere  has  proved  that,  at  least  as  re- 
gards that  amusement,  my  skepticism  as  to  the  need 
for  ceremonial  machinery  was  well  founded.  There 
was  no  reason  for  it  except  a  tradition-ridden 
habit;  every  one  learned  with  relief  that  the  fun  of 
dancing  could  be  had  without  the  preparation,  the 
fatigue,  the  heart-burning  excitement  of  the  formal 
dance. 

Now,  is  not  something  of  the  same  sort  true  of 
social  life  for  children?  Why  make  a  bugbear  of 
it?  It  is  apparent  to  every  open-minded  observer 
that  social  life,  recreation-in-common,  is  as  definite 
a  need  of  humanity  as  bread  or  fire.  Children  will 
have  it  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  The  best  we  can 
do  is  to  try  to  color  their  social  life  with  wholesome- 
ness  and  spontaneity  and  true  light-heartedness, 
rather  than  as  it  is  so  sadly  often  colored — with 
vanity  and  competition  and  egotism  and  self-seek- 
ing. And  here  is  the  link,  which,  to  my  mind  at 
least,  connects  the  subject  with  self-reliance.  If 
children  can  be  trained  not  to  depend  upon  cum- 
brous social  machinery  for  their  social  fun,  but  to 
create  it  themselves,  spontaneously,  out  of  the  ma- 
terial available  on  any  chance  occasion,  their  natural 
hunger  for  it  will  be  appeased  by  wholesome  food, 


84  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  the  meretricious  and  false  will  have  much  less 
appeal  to  them.  Now,  to  innovate  any  new  thing,  to 
create  any  thing  at  all,  requires  much  more  initiative 
and  resourcefulness  than  to  roll  along  a  groove 
smoothed  by  custom,  and  initiative  and  resource- 
fulness in  social  matters,  like  those  qualities  in  other 
lines,  can  only  be  attained  by  opportunity  for  prac- 
tise. 

Such  opportunity  must  be  of  long  duration  if  it 
is  to  engender  a  habit,  and  "social  life"  can  and 
should  begin  with  quite  young  children,  with  no  less 
hackneyed  a  device  than  the  play  tea-party.  In- 
stead of  a  rarely  occurring,  elaborately  prepared- 
for,  long  drawn-out  "children's  party"  once  or  twice 
a  year,  let  every  passing  event  or  anniversary  be 
celebrated  by  an  impromptu  gathering  of  the  usual 
"crowd"  of  playmates.  For  this  occasion,  instead 
of  a  hard-and-fast  program  of  entertainment,  a  suc- 
cession of  "things-to-do"  thought  out  beforehand, 
and  imposed  upon  the  children  according  to  sched- 
ule, leave  much,  if  not  all,  to  the  inspiration  of  the 
moment,  the  freshness  of  which  will  certainly  make 
up  for  the  lack  of  formal  preparation.  And,  above 
all,  accustom  the  children  from  the  first  to  feel  a 
cheerful  and  competent  responsibility  for  their  own 
fun,  rather  than  a  passive  willingness  to  be  amused 
if  the  entertainment  offered  comes  up  to  their  high 
standard  for  entertainment.  One  of  our  great- 


SOCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE  85 

grandmothers  would  probably  have  laughed  out- 
right at  the  notion  that  children  need  to  be  trained 
to  be  self-reliant  enough  to  produce  their  own  fun. 
But  if  she  had  ever  been  present  at  a  social  gather- 
ing of  modern  city  children  and  observed  their 
bored  listless  acceptance  of  one  "parlor  entertainer" 
after  another  and  their  total  inability  to  initiate  any 
fun-making  activity  for  themselves,  her  laughter 
would  have  turned  into  dismay. 

"Let's  have  a  party,"  should  evoke  no  aghast, 
bone- weary  ing  premonition  of  long  bother  and  ex- 
pense for  adults,  no  anxious  worrying  about  cos- 
tumes on  the  part  of  the  children.  Above  all,  it 
should  mean  for  children  no  long  interval  between 
the  hospitable  impulse  and  its  execution,  the  usual 
week  or  ten-day  interval  which  allows  time  for  the 
warmth  of  the  feeling  to  cool  and  harden  into  set 
and  cumbersome  forms.  "Let's  have  a  party," 
should  usually  have  as  response,  an  eager,  light- 
hearted  "All  right."  "When?"  "This  afternoon?" 
Or,  "To-morrow?"  Or,  "As  soon  as  we  can  get 
word  to  Roger  and  Mary,  who  live  out  in  the  coun- 
try?" 

If  one  wants  to  begin  training  in  some  ele- 
mentary ceremonies,  an  hour  or  so  is  spent  in  writ- 
ing simple  notes  of  invitation :  "Dear  Margie :  We 
are  going  to  have  a  charade-party  to-morrow  eve- 
ning from  seven  to  nine.  I  hope  your  mother  will 


86  SELF-RELIANCE 

let  you  come."  Or  a  house-to-house  expedition  is 
made  by  the  prospective  host,  who  asks  to  see  the 
mother  of  his  prospective  guest,  explains  his  pur- 
pose to  her  and  asks  that  Margie  be  allowed  to 
come.  Since  the  telephone  has  become  such  an  ad- 
junct to  our  modern  social  life,  one  might  well 
accept  it,  and  occasionally  let  the  children  call  up  the 
mothers  of  their  playmates,  and  learn  to  ask  courte- 
ously for  the  presence  of  the  desired  little  guests. 
Any  of  these  simple  proceedings  are  agonizing  or- 
deals to  children  who  have  had  no  social  training, 
and  one  of  the  results  of  the  frequent  and  informal 
social  life  here  advocated  is  the  inevitable  natural 
increase  in  comfort  and  self-reliance  which  comes 
to  children  who  frequently  go  through  these  ordi- 
nary forms  of  social  intercourse.  It  is  well,  for  all 
the  easy-going  nature  of  your  party,  not  to  allow 
the  invitation  to  be  issued  by  a  yell  from  one  back 
yard  to  another,  with  no  reference  to  mothers  in- 
volved. 

When  the  invitations  have  been  issued  the  young 
hosts  and  their  parents  should  have  a  hasty  confer- 
ence as  to  what  to  do  for  entertainment,  choosing 
between  the  literally  infinite  possibilities  for  simple 
lively  fun.  "Shall  we  have  a  candy-pull  ?  Or  shall 
we  play  charades  ?"  The  first  necessitates  a  looking 
into  kitchen  supplies  of  sugar,  molasses  and  the  like; 
the  latter  a  hasty  gathering  together  of  old  portieres 


SOCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE  87, 

for  royal  robes,  fur  rugs  for  wild  animals,  perhaps 
a  gilt-paper  crown  or  so,  if  the  playroom  contains 
such;  sheets  for  ghosts,  shawls  for  draperies  and 
such  easily  procured  stage  properties;  and  neither 
of  them  needs  more  than  ten  minutes'  attention  be- 
fore the  hastily  summoned  guests  arrive.  Or  per- 
haps the  choice  lies  between  "Shall  we  have  a  pic- 
nic?" and  "Shall  we  just  play  games — stage-coach, 
still-pond-no-more-moving,  hunt  the  thimble,  and 
the  like?"  Or,  "Shall  we  set  the  Victrola  going  and 
have  a  dance?"  If  a  picnic  is  decided  upon,  do  not 
spend  a  whole  morning,  nor  have  your  cook  spend  a 
whole  morning,  in  making  elaborate  sandwiches 
and  packing  a  big  hamper  with  costly  ready-to-eat 
food.  Make  your  picnic  more  like  an  encampment, 
with  a  fire  where  chops  may  be  broiled,  each  child 
holding  his  own  over  the  coals,  with  a  forked  stick 
which  he  himself  has  cut.  Or  let  them  cook  bacon, 
which  may  then  be  clapped  between  slices  of  bread 
cut  from  the  loaf  on  the  spot.  Depend  for  your  fun 
more  on  active  games  in  the  open,  "Pom-pom,  pull- 
away,"  "Black  man"  and  the  like,  than  on  compli- 
cated viands.  The  children  will  almost  certainly 
enjoy  the  occasion  much  more;  and  the  preparations 
will  be  so  simple  that  the  picnic  may  recur  as  often 
as  the  children  like. 

For  indoor  "parties,"  too,  it  is  an  easy  matter,  if 
the  right  kind  of  thought  is  taken,  to  provide  enter- 


88  SELF-RELIANCE 

tainment  which  is  based  (as  it  ought  to  be  based) 
on  activity  for  the  children  during  the  party,  rather 
than  for  adults  beforehand.  A  good  sample  of 
what  may  be  done  is  the  sculptor's  party.  A  couple 
of  pounds  of  modeling  clay,  or  prepared  wax,  costs 
little,  can  be  used  over  and  over,  and  insures  ab- 
sorbed interest  and  peals  of  laughter.  Cover  the 
dining-room  table  with  oil-cloth,  give  each  child  a 
lump  of  clay  and  a  piece  of  paper.  He  writes  on  the 
paper  the  name  of  an  animal,  and  puts  it  into  a  box. 
When  all  have  done  this,  the  box  is  shaken,  and 
each  draws  out  at  random  a  slip.  Without  showing 
the  others  the  name  of  the  animal  written  on  it  he 
sets  to  work  to  model  this  in  clay.  The  animal  rec- 
ognized by  the  largest  number  of  those  present, 
wins  the  contest,  and  if  desired,  the  artist  may  be 
awarded  a  simple  prize. 

Afterward  hands  are  washed,  the  oil-cloth  re- 
moved, hot  cocoa  and  sandwiches  are  passed,  after 
which  there  can  be  a  round  of  home-games,  "Blind- 
man's-buff,"  "I  spy,"  "Three  guesses,"  "When  my 
ship  comes  in." 

There  is  no  reason  why  an  ordinarily  competent 
child  of  ten  or  twelve,  who  has  been  accustomed  to 
this  sort  of  lightly  worn,  easy-going  hospitality, 
should  not  plan  and  conduct  such  an  afternoon 
"party"  as  this  from  beginning  to  end,  from  issuing 
the  invitations  to  making  the  cocoa  or  lemonade, 


SOCIAL   SELF-RELIANCE  89 

and  so  have  the  wholesome  experience  as  often  as 
once  a  week  if  desired.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any 
formal  information  acquired  at  school  is  any  more 
valuable  to  him  than  the  trained  capacity  to  organ- 
ize and  carry  through  wholesome  entertainment  for 
himself  and  his  companions.  I  hope  my  readers  see 
it  by  this  time  as  I  do,  as  truly  a  manifestation  of 
self-reliance,  to  know  how  to  create  some  pleasure 
out  of  hours-in-common,  as  to  be  able  to  find  one's 
way  about  a  strange  city  by  means  of  a  map. 

As  the  children  grow  older  they  will  probably  no 
longer  play  "I  spy''  or  "Stage-coach,"  but  if  they 
have  back  of  them  years  of  such  lively,  active, 
laughter-filled  homes,  there  is  a  strong  probability 
that  they  will  resist  with  energy  the  pressure  put 
upon  young  people  to  amuse  themselves  solely  in  the 
stereotyped  ways  prescribed  by  society.  They  will 
be  the  young  people  who  do  not  spend  themselves 
and  their  substance  on  attempts  at  elaborate  food 
and  theater  parties,  following  the  dimly  glimpsed 
example  of  listless,  elderly  wealthy  people  in  great 
cities.  They  will  form  the  "set"  which  gets  its  fun 
out  of  cross-country  walks,  and  skating  parties,  and 
amateur  theatricals  and  impromptu  musicales,  the 
"set"  which  can  not  be  together  an  hour  without 
organizing  some  active,  spontaneous,  wholesome, 
harmless  fun,  in  the  making  of  which  their  bound- 
less young  energy  has  found  an  outlet.  Such  a 


90  SELF-RELIANCE 

group  of  young  people  is  quite  as  great  an  asset  to 
a  town  as  a  colony  of  social-service  workers. 

Moreover,  if,  as  so  frequently  happens  in  the 
shifting  instability  of  American  social  life,  the  "set" 
is  scattered,  every  one  is  a  nucleus  for  just  such 
healthy  social  life  wherever  he  goes,  and,  from  his 
own  experience,  can  inculcate  the  vital  teaching, 
that  even  for  enjoyment  an  active  attitude  of  mind 
is  more  successful  than  the  passive,  that  even  when 
one  is  seeking  mere  entertainment,  he  is  more  apt  to 
get  it  if  he  shares  in  the  making  of  it. 

FOR   REFERENCE 

Book  of  Children's  Parties,  Mary  and  Sara 
White  (Century). 

Healthful  Art  of  Dancing,  Luther  Gulick  (Dou- 
bleday,  Page  &  Co.). 

Pleasant  Day  Diversions,  Carolyn  Wells  (Mof- 
fat,  Yard  &  Co.). 

Playtime  Games  for  Boys  and  Girls,  Emma  C. 
Dowd  (George  W.  Jacobs  &  Co.). 

Children's  Book  of  Games  and  Parties,  Carolyn 
Sherwin  Bailey  (Milton  Bradley  Co.). 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   USE   OF   BOOKS  AND  LIBRARIES 

THERE  are  two  halves  to  every  self-reliant  act. 
First,  the  mental  impulse  to  master  conditions ; 
second,  the  ability  to  use  tools  fit  to  compass  the 
end.  In  practical  life,  the  second  often  goes  before 
the  first,  for  the  consciousness  of  the  ability  compe- 
tently to  use  the  right  tools  often  arouses  the  im- 
pulse to  master  conditions:  the  habit  of  success  in 
practising  with  the  implements  means  self-confi- 
dence and  courage  to  take  them  up. 

Now  there  are  tools  and  tools:  there  are  literal 
tools,  like  hammers  and  saws,  and  needles  and 
thread  which  every  one  emerging  from  a  well-spent 
childhood  knows  instinctively  how  to  use.  And  there 
are  less  palpable  tools  like  the  ability  to  keep  ac- 
counts and  to  plan  expeditions,  the  use  of  which 
tends  to  sturdy,  self-reliance  no  less  than  does  the 
habit  of  walking  on  one's  own  two  feet  and  not  be- 
ing pushed  in  a  wheeled-chair.  But  of  all  the  tools 
in  this  world  it  is  doubtful  if  any  are  so  useful  to 
twentieth-century  people,  as  books,  and  the  capacity 
to  extract  from  them  the  information  and  guidance 
which  they  so  amply  contain. 

91 


92  SELF-RELIANCE 

Since  school  life,  to  a  greater  extent  than  home 
life,  is  outwardly  concerned  with  books,  parents 
often  feel  that  there  is  no  need  for  them  to  say  any- 
thing on  the  subject;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  few 
school  children  are  taught  anything  like  the  extent 
to  which  books  may  be  used  to  supply  their  needs. 
I  do  not  speak  here  of  any  of  the  higher,  more  spir- 
itual sustenance  which  may  be  drawn  from  books. 
I  am  not  referring  here  to  the  permanent  and  golden 
satisfactions  to  be  derived  from  a  love  of  general 
good  reading.  I  mean  to  take  up  here  merely  the 
use  of  books  as  concrete  tools  to  accomplish  a  given 
end.  There  is  material  enough  in  the  subject  for 
more  than  one  brief  chapter.  Centuries  ago  when 
the  first  books  were  printed,  the  human  mind  was 
freed  from  its  age-old  dependence  on  spoken  in- 
struction. And  yet  few  people  realized  this.  Books 
were  rather  scarce,  and  for  the  most  part  instruc- 
tion went  on  being  accomplished  by  means  of  verbal 
give-and-take  as  it  was  in  prehistoric  days.  Sev- 
enty-five years  ago  Carlyle  cried  out  upon  uni- 
versity lectures  as  lingering  anachronisms  in  the 
modern  world,  crammed  full  of  cheap  and  well- 
written  books.  Books  have  grown  vastly  more 
plentiful  and  less  expensive  than  even  in  Carlyle's 
day;  but  his  motto  of  "every  man  his  own  pro- 
fessor" has  met  with  an  acceptance  by  no  means 
universal.  But  now  following  Carlyle  there  comes 


BOOKS   AND   LIBRARIES  93 

an  army  of  devoted  assistants  called  librarians,  and, 
if  the  parents  will  do  their  share,  the  next  genera- 
tion will  have  a  habit  new  to  the  world,  the  habit  of 
the  scholar,  now  become  for  the  first  time  possible 
for  the  plain  man,  of  fortifying  his  single  per- 
sonality with  the  wisdom  and  insight  of  all  who 
have  ever  thought. 

Librarians  are  like  teachers  in  many  respects. 
They  gather  in  conventions  where  they  lay  their 
keen-witted  heads  together  and  think  out  plans  for 
luring  the  public  into  their  beneficent  nets;  they 
write  and  read  professional  journals  which  keep 
them  abreast  of  the  latest  devices  for  circumventing 
the  inertia,  the  thick-headedness  and  the  illiteracy  of 
their  countrymen;  and  their  roving  eyes  are  quick 
to  perceive  every  opportunity  given  them.  We  can 
safely  leave  much  of  the  library  education  of  our 
children  to  these  energetic  and  ingenious  forwarders 
of  the  public  weal — if  we  see  to  it  that  they  are 
able  ever  to  lay  their  hands  on  our  children !  For 
even  modern  American  librarians  can  accomplish 
little  by  the  absent  treatment.  How  can  we  get  our 
children  into  the  hands  of  librarians?  In  the  first 
place  by  working  for  the  establishment  of  a  library, 
if  there  is  none  in  our  community  (there  are  still 
libraryless  towns,  I  suppose,  in  America,  though  it 
is  hard  to  believe)  ;  by  seeing  to  it  that  the  librarian 
appointed  is  not  some  worthy  and  superannuated 


94  SELF-RELIANCE 

dame  whose  main  preoccupation  is  the  fear  that 
some  reader  may  carry  off  a  volume,  but  is  a  brisk, 
forth-putting  librarian,  well  trained  in  modern 
methods  and  encouraged  to  do  her  best  by  a  decent 
salary;  by  further  heartening  her  by  a  show  of  in- 
terest in  her  work;  and,  most  of  all,  by  arranging 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  our  children  shall  spend 
a  certain  proportion  of  their  free  hours  browsing  in 
a  library  under  the  supervision  of  a  specialist  in 
books.  The  rest  we  can  leave  to  our  librarian. 

But  the  best  of  all  book-habits  she  can  not  incul- 
cate because  she  does  not  live  with  the  children 
hour  by  hour  and  day  by  day  as  we  do.  This  best 
book-habit  is  quite  simply  the  habit  of  using  books 
steadily,  as  a  matter  of  course.  And,  like  all  habits, 
it  can  best  be  inculcated  by  the  irresistible  force  of 
example.  The  parents  themselves  should  use  books 
as  freely,  as  naturally,  to  help  themselves  to  informa- 
tion as  they  use  knives  and  forks  to  help  themselves 
to  food.  The  dictionary  should  be  in  almost  as  fre- 
quent employment  as  the  broom,  and  the  encyclo- 
pedia as  soap  and  water.  The  family  talk  should  be 
punctuated,  naturally,  simply,  in  quite  a  matter-of- 
fact  way  by  references  to  one  or  another  reference 
book.  High-school  teachers  report  that  many  of 
their  pupils  do  not  know  how  to  look  up  a  subject  in 
an  encyclopedia,  that  they  are  wholly  put  off  if 
they  do  not  find  it  indexed  under  the  first  heading 


BOOKS   AND   LIBRARIES  95 

which  occurs  to  them,  and  are  entirely  without  re- 
sourcefulness as  to  means  to  dig  out  the  ore  from 
that  great  gold  mine  of  human  knowledge.  This  is 
a  tool  of  self-reliance,  the  use  of  which  can  be  taught 
them  only  at  home  by  means  of  repeated  comradely 
excursions  into  books. 

Somebody  sees  in  an  illustrated  magazine  a  pic- 
ture of  Malay  pearl-fishers  and  asks :  "Father,  what 
is  a  Malay,  anyhow  ?" 

"Well,  son,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  exactly  know 
how  they  do  differ  from  Hindus  or  Chinamen,  but 
let's  look  'em  up." 

In  this  case  the  general  topic,  "Malay,"  is  in- 
stantly found  in  the  index ;  the  training  for  the  child 
consists  in  hunting  out  in  the  rather  formidable 
mass  of  information  about  the  Malay  archipelago, 
the  particular  item  he  desires  about  the  race  itself. 
He  learns  from  seeing  his  father  do  it,  how  to  run 
through  "Geography,"  "Flora,"  "Fauna,"  "Geol- 
ogy," "History,"  "Habits,"  and  to  pounce  on  the 
heading  "Ethnology"  for  a  careful  reading  and  set- 
tling of  his  question.  He  learns  that  the  list  of 
books  printed  under  the  heading  "Bibliography," 
after  each  article,  are  the  books  that  the  writer  of 
the  article  believes  most  valuable  for  a  more  thor- 
ough study  of  the  subject.  At  times  when  his  in- 
terest is  particularly  aroused  he  will  carry  his  inves- 
tigations further.  He  will  make  a  list  of  the  books 


96  SELF-RELIANCE 

referred  to  and  show  them  to  the  librarian.  Follow- 
ing her  advice  as  to  which  of  them  he  would  be  most 
likely  to  find  clear  and  intelligible,  he  will  take  out 
two  or  more  from  the  library,  read  them,  and  from 
their  agreement  or  disagreement  make  up  his  mind 
as  to  what  is  well  established  about  the  subject  and 
what  is  still  in  dispute.  Incidentally  he  is  very  apt 
to  linger  somewhat  as  he  goes  along  and  to  absorb 
a  certain  amount  of  other  information,  but  that 
is  not  the  point  made  here,  which  is  that  he  is  learn- 
ing how  to  depend  upon  himself,  to  find  an  answer 
to  his  own  questions. 

With  this  growing  knowledge  of  the  help  to  be 
had  from  books,  is  almost  sure  to  come  a  beginning 
of  the  book-buying  impulse,  which  is  of  inestimable 
value  in  a  modern  life.  For  the  boy  who  is  inter- 
ested in  carpenters'  tools,  any  one  of  the  good  man- 
uals issued  is  a  better  Christmas  present  than  a  story 
of  adventure,  which  (for  the  single  reading  that  he 
will  care  to  give  it)  he  can  get  out  of  a  library. 
Hardly  a  publishing  firm  omits  from  its  list  of 
books,  one  or  more  "how-to-make"  books  for  chil- 
dren, a  fair  assortment  of  which  should  be  furnished 
them  along  with  stockings  and  shoes,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, one  of  the  better  children's  substitutes  for  adult 
encyclopedias  should  be  on  the  shelves  of  the  play- 
room. This  is  not  so  essential,  however,  as  the  pub- 
lishers of  those  works  would  have  us  believe,  be- 


BOOKS    AND   LIBRARIES  97 

cause  children  well  trained  can  very  soon  learn  how 
to  use  for  themselves  the  grown-up  books  of  refer- 
ence. 

I  am  taking  it  for  granted  that  every  family  will 
have  a  dictionary,  an  atlas,  and  as  good  an  encyclo- 
pedia as  they  can  afford;  and  so  they  should  have, 
no  matter  how  they  have  to  stint  and  save  to  buy 
them.  But  I  know,  of  course,  that  many  families 
do  not  have  good  books  of  reference.  Perhaps  the 
father  does  not  sympathize  with  the  question-asking 
of  the  children;  perhaps  after  food  and  shelter  are 
paid  for  there  is  no  money  left  for  books.  In  such 
a  family  there  is  no  need  for  the  livelier  intellects  to 
despair ;  they  have  to  be  a  little  more  patient,  that  is 
all.  Somewhere,  at  the  library,  at  school,  or  at  some 
neighbor's  house,  there  is  an  encyclopedia  which 
they  are  welcome  to  inspect.  When  the  question 
arises,  "How  is  silk  made?"  one  of  the  children  is 
delegated  to  look  the  matter  up  during  the  next  day 
and  report  to  the  family  at  dinner-time.  If  the 
family  is  keen-witted  the  evening  report  on  last 
night's  questions  may  become  an  entertaining  insti- 
tution. Perhaps  two  children  may  look  up  the  same 
topic  and  see  which  can  present  the  fullest  report. 
Perhaps  a  judicious  parent  may  unobtrusively  sug- 
gest questions  which  will  introduce  the  children  to 
fascinating  subjects  for  research. 

A  well-indexed  loose-leaf  scrap-book  is  an  ex- 


98  SELF-RELIANCE 

cellent  adjunct  to  the  book-buying  habit.  Through 
most  homes,  nowadays,  there  passes  in  and  out  a 
flood  of  magazines,  many  of  which  have  in  them 
useful  and  interesting  items,  well  worth  preserving, 
but  which  are  whirled  along  with  the  current  that 
carries  them  down-cellar  to  the  furnace  or  out  to 
the  ash-can.  If  each  child  is  shown  to  make  an 
alphabetically  arranged  scrap-book,  he  will  take 
pleasure  in  putting  down  in  it  all  sorts  of  odds 
and  ends  that  bear  on  his  interests;  items  about 
skating  or  birds*  eggs  or  even  the  personalities 
of  his  idolized  baseball  stars.  If  he  learns  from 
them  how  to  save  what  will  be  of  service  to 
him  from  the  overwhelming  bulk  of  periodical 
literature,  how  to  keep  his  information  from  slip- 
ping away  from  him,  how  to  set  it  in  such  order 
that  he  can  find  it  when  he  wants  it,  he  will  have 
acquired  the  habit  that  will  help  him  in  college,  and 
indeed  all  through  his  life.  Moreover  these  books 
make  the  most  interesting  records  of  a  child's  in- 
terests. At  fourteen  he  is  immensely  amused  and 
diverted  by  what  he  chose  to  preserve  at  eight ;  and 
at  twenty  by  his  interests  of  fourteen;  and  this  oc- 
casional self-survey  has  its  value. 

One  of  the  excellent  factors  of  intellectual  self- 
reliance  which  should  be  taught  a  child  who  is  ac- 
quiring the  habit  of  handling  books  intelligently,  is 
that  he  must  not  swallow  them  whole,  but  must 


BOOKS   AND   LIBRARIES  99 

depend  more  or  less  upon  his  own  sense  of  the 
inherent  probabilities.  For  this  purpose  it  is  neces- 
sary to  have  a  variety  of  books  of  reference  avail- 
able, either  at  home,  or  in  the  nearest  library,  and  to 
show  him  how  to  check  up  an  English  authority  by 
reference  to  an  American  one;  a  Boston  historian 
of  the  Civil  War  by  one  from  Virginia. 

In  using  all  these  books  of  reference  which  con- 
tain exact  information,  the  aim  of  the  parent  should 
be  to  banish  the  slipshod,  helpless  phrase,  "I  wish  I 
knew — "  and  substitute  in  its  place  an  energetic  im- 
pulse to  find  out  the  answer,  and  a  self-reliant  se- 
curity that  the  answer  is  to  be  found. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MAKING  DREAMS   COME  TRUE 

SUCCESS  or  failure  in  adult  life  depends  largely 
on  the  energy,  courage  and  self-reliance  with 
which  one  attacks  the  problem  of  making  his  dreams 
come  true.  Self-confidence  in  any  enterprise  comes 
as  a  rule  from  remembrance  of  past  success,  and  it 
is  part  of  the  duty  of  a  good  home  to  furnish  enough 
successes  to  create  the  habit  of  that  reasonable  self- 
assurance  which  leads  to  initiative  and  self-reliance. 

In  several  of  the  other  chapters,  under  other  head- 
ings, mention  has  been  made  of  dreams  realized,  like 
the  family  camp,  the  cave,  the  house  in  the  tree,  all 
the  results  of  a  masterful  attitude  toward  raw  mate- 
rial. This  chapter  is  intended  to  supplement  these 
suggestions  and  to  explain  more  clearly  the  principle 
involved. 

It  is  an  old  axiom  with  psychologists  that  emotion 
which  finds  no  outlet  in  action  is  unwholesome  and 
debilitating.  And  a  new  axiom  is  rapidly  coming 
into  currency — that  "suppressed  desires"  have  a 
bad  effect  on  the  later  strength  and  development  of 
children.  This  does  not  at  all  mean  that  children 

100 


DREAMS    COMING   TRUE  101 

should  have  everything  they  happen  to  desire.  It 
means,  however,  that  an  arbitrary  suppression  of  a 
desire  by  external  violence  or  circumstance  is  a  bad 
thing.  If  the  individual  himself,  consciously 
chooses  to  give  up  his  desire  because  it  interferes 
with  something  else  he  wants  more,  the  desire  is 
conquered,  not  suppressed;  and  if  he  consciously 
and  intelligently  realizes  that  his  desire  is  a  genu- 
inely impossible  one,  no  sore  place  is  left  in  his  sub- 
consciousness.  Probably  nobody  ever  suffered  ob- 
scure nervous  ills  at  not  being  able  to  take  a  trip 
to  the  moon,  or  to  walk  on  the  water,  because,  al- 
though such  a  desire  might  arise  from  a  childish 
whim,  the  manifest  impossibility  of  those  undertak- 
ings is  patent  to  any  sane  eye,  even  to  a  young  child's 
eye.  There  are  other  desires,  analogous  to  the 
baby's  wish  to  catch  the  pretty  candle-flame  in  his 
fingers.  The  wise  mother  neither  snatches  the  baby 
away  altogether  from  the  flame,  nor  lets  him  burn 
his  little  fingers.  She  holds  him  securely  in  her 
arms  and,  his  hand  in  hers,  lets  the  baby  fingers  ap- 
proach close  enough  to  the  heat,  so  that  a  natural 
instinct  of  self-preservation  bids  him  of  his  own  ac- 
cord draw  back  his  hand.  What  has  happened  there 
is  that  the  baby's  desire  to  hold  the  flame  has  suc- 
cumbed to  his  desire  not  to  be  hurt.  His  mother 
has  not  suppressed  any  desire  of  his.  The  baby  has 
chosen  between  two  alternatives,  and,  being  a 


102  SELF-RELIANCE 

healthy,  unspoiled  human  organism,  has  chosen  for 
his  own  good. 

Let  us  repeat  again  these  two  psychological  ax- 
ioms :  first,  "emotion  which  finds  no  outlet  in  action 
is  unwholesome  and  debilitating";  second,  "sup- 
pressed desires"  (that  is,  suppressed  by  external  cir- 
cumstance and  not  by  the  will  of  the  individual)  are 
dangerous  factors  in  human  lives.  Bearing  these  in 
mind,  consider  what  you  would  answer  to  a  little  boy 
of  eight  or  nine  who  says,  wistfully,  "Oh,  I  wish  we 
lived  where  Indians  are !  I  wish  I  was  an  Indian !" 
As  a  modern  parent  you  dare  not  practise  the  negli- 
gent offhand  methods  of  the  parents  of  two  gen- 
erations ago,  who  said  briskly,  "What  nonsense, 
Jimmy!  If  I  hear  any  more  such  talk,  I'll  know 
how  to  make  you  stop  it!  Go  and  split  your  kin- 
dlings this  minute !"  You  remember  that  such  par- 
ents were  always  cut  to  the  heart  when  the  most  en- 
ergetic of  their  sons  ran  away  from  home  to  lead  a 
roaming  life.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  you  say  to 
yourself  with  the  humorous  despair  which  is  a  fre- 
quent mood  with  modern  parents  :  "Good  gra- 
cious, we  can't  be  expected  to  move  out  to  an  Indian 
reservation  and  live  in  a  wigwam!  If  there  were 
no  other  reasons,  before  we  got  there,  Jimmy  would 
have  forgotten  his  Indians  and  want  to  be  a  sailor." 
You  find  yourself,  in  short,  in  such  a  dilemma  that 
you  are  actually  forced  to  give  some  genuine 


DREAMS   COMING   TRUE  103 

thought  to  the  matter,  difficult  as  that  is.  When 
you  have  done  this,  you  realize  that  Jimmy  does  not 
really  want  to  be  an  Indian  at  all.  His  limited  vo- 
cabulary has  led  him  into  an  inexact  phrasing  of  the 
vague  desire  which  stirs  in  him.  What  he  wants  is 
to  have  some  experience  of  the  Indian  way  of  life; 
and  it  is  quite  possible  for  him  to  "be"  enough  of  an 
Indian  in  your  back  yard,  entirely  to  satisfy  him. 
So,  suppressing  a  sigh  at  the  complications  of  the 
modern  parent's  life,  you  undertake  to  help  Jimmy 
be  an  Indian.  If  you  do  not  merely  buy  for  him  an 
Indian  suit  and  let  it  go  at  that,  but  instead,  if  you 
go  heartily  with  him  into  his  new  life,  you  will  not 
improbably  be  rewarded  by  forgetting  to  sigh :  you 
will  find  that  you  feel  a  considerable  interest  in  In- 
dians yourself.  You  and  Jimmy  begin  with  an  ex- 
pedition to  the  nearest  sapling  thicket  to  cut  poles 
for  your  wigwam.  If  no  saplings  whatever  are  to 
be  had  (and  this  will  hardly  ever  be  the  case)  bam- 
boo fishing  poles  might  be  used.  Then  when  these 
are  set  up,  you  make  your  wigwam  cover,  consult- 
ing books  of  Indian  lore  as  you  do,  books  that  will 
almost  certainly  be  better  reading  matter  for  Jimmy 
than  the  exciting  story  of  Indian  adventure  which 
probably  started  him  off.  You  figure  out  the  size 
of  cover  needed,  enlarge  patterns  from  your  books 
and  cut  your  cover.  Then  it  must  be  decorated. 
This  involves  more  solid  reading  about  Indian  art 


104  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  symbolism  and  the  application  of  it  to  Jimmy's 
Indian  existence.  What  tribe  will  he  choose  to  be 
a  member  of?  What  symbols  will  he  choose  for  his 
Indian  home  ?  What  will  be  his  Indian  name  ? 

Then  he  moves  in,  rolls  himself  up  in  his  blanket 
and  sleeps  on  the  ground  (with  rubber  under  him 
unobtrusively  placed  there  by  his  squaw-mother). 
He  learns  how  to  make  a  tiny  Indian  fire  in  the  mid- 
dle of  his  new  shelter  (cloth  can  be  fireproofed  by 
household  methods),  and  either  to  endure  patiently 
the  inevitably  resultant  smoke  or  to  reflect  secretly 
that  perhaps  it  is  as  well  to  have  a  civilized  home  for 
an  occasional  retreat.  He  "reads  up"  on  what  In- 
dians eat,  how  they  cook  their  corn-meal,  and  what 
utensils  they  use.  If  his  interest  still  holds,  he  can 
make,  or  help  make,  or  watch  somebody  make  (ac- 
cording to  his  tool-using  capacity)  a  bow  and  ar- 
rows, and  practise  shooting  at  a  home-made  target 
in  the  back  yard,  or  on  "family  hikes"  at  trees  or 
stones  or  squirrels  (the  latter  quite  safe  from  his 
attacks).  He  goes  on  to  buy  ten-cent-a-yard  canton 
flannel  and  a  ten-eent  package  of  brown  dye,  and 
from  a  combination  of  the  two  evolves  imitation 
buck-skin,  natural-looking  enough  for  any  ten-year- 
old  brave;  and  he  paints  on  this  Indian  costume  a 
repetition  of  the  symbols  and  designs  he  put  upon 
his  wigwam. 

By  this  time  the  little  boy  who  sighed  wistfully 


DREAMS   COMING   TRUE  105 

and  helplessly  "Oh,  I  wish  I  was  an  Indian !"  has 
disappeared  and  in  his  place  there  is  a  hard-working 
youngster  too  full  of  his  fascinating  occupations 
to  have  any  time  or  strength  for  fantastic  whims, 
and  yet,  such  is  the  nature  of  children,  just  as  his 
parents  get  really  interested  in  the  subject,  he  will 
probably  have  his  fill  of  Indian  and  suddenly  want 
to  be  a  chauffeur  on  a  motor-truck.  In  the  moment 
of  exasperation  that  inevitably  comes  to  logically 
and  consequentially  minded  adults  at  this  fit  fulness 
of  interest  in  young  children,  let  his  mother  re- 
member that  her  little  son  has  had  some  weeks  of 
very  profitable  play  out  of  his  fancy,  that  he  has 
acquired  considerable  information  and  dexterity  of 
hand,  that  he  has  had  what  for  a  ten-year-old 
amounts  to  adventure,  without  which  no  healthy 
child  life  is  long  endurable;  he  has  learned  that 
wishes  are  not  to  be  gratified  without  effort,  and, 
finally,  that  he  has  begun  the  habit  of  turning  an 
emotion  into  action,  of  doing  something  to  make  his 
dreams  come  true. 

Well,  what  shall  she  do  when  he  wants  to  be  the 
driver  of  a  motor-truck?  She  can  hardly  manage 
that  in  the  back  yard,  can  she  ?  No,  she  can  hardly 
give  him  a  full-sized  motor-truck,  but  she  can  help 
him  fit  up  a  child's,  play,  foot-propelled  auto- 
mobile as  some  sort  of  imitation  of  the  coveted 
vehicle.  An  express  wagon  can  be  fastened  behind 


106  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  loaded  with  empty  boxes,  a  last-year's  license- 
number  can  be  hung  at  the  axle.  One  dry-battery 
cell  can  be  made  to  ring  an  electric  bell  as  he  wheels 
around  the  back  yard,  delivering  an  empty  starch 
box  at  the  grape  arbor,  taking  on  a  can  of  ashes  at 
the  kitchen  door.  If  he  is  old  enough  and  mechanic- 
ally-minded enough  to  make  anything  out  of  the 
subject,  she  can  set  him  studying  the  principle  of 
the  gasoline  engine.  He  can  experiment  somewhat 
with  dry  cells,  noting  how  much  livelier  is  the  spark 
of  the  induced  current  from  a  coil  (and  he  can 
make  the  coil  himself)  than  that  of  the  primary  dry- 
cell  current.  Perhaps  as  a  reward  for  progress  in 
understanding  the  diagrams  in  his  book  on  motor 
construction,  he  can  be  taken  to  a  garage  where  the 
mechanic  (if  paid  for  his  time)  will  make  the  whole 
subject  clearer  by  illustrating  it  with  more  or  less 
dismantled  motors.  Perhaps  a  short  ride  could  be 
procured  for  him  beside  the  real  driver  of  a  real 
truck. 

Take  another  concrete  case — the  children  who 
have  been  to  the  theater  or  the  moving  pictures  or 
the  circus,  and  who  "want  to  have  a  play."  If  their 
interest  seems  at  all  genuine,  don't  let  their  desire 
evaporate  in  mere  idle  wishing.  There  is  wholesome 
occupation  for  some  months  in  making  this  dream 
come  true,  and  the  "stage  struck"  overwrought  ele- 
ment of  their  interest  in  the  theater  will  probably  be 


DREAMS   COMING   TRUE  107 

worked  off  in  the  abundant  opportunity  for  honest 
labor  offered  them.  Help  them  decide  on  a  play 
suitable  for  children  to  give, — a  dramatization  of  a 
fairy-tale,  an  historical  incident,  a  Bible  story,  or 
the  like.  There  are  plenty  of  such  already  written 
and  published,  but  it  would  be  better  if  they  could 
write  it  themselves,  with  suggestions  from  teacher 
and  mother.  Then,  with  unbleached  muslin,  dye, 
raveled  rope,  gilt-paper,  wands,  shawls,  rugs  and 
similar  raw  materials,  the  family  embarks  upon  a 
costume  and  wig-making  campaign  which  can  be 
carried  on  while  the  roles  are  being  learned  and  re- 
hearsed. If  the  resultant  performance  promises  to 
be  at  all  creditable,  let  the  children  give  it  in  the 
largest  room  in  the  house,  or  in  a  neighbor's  house, 
and  charge  a  small  admission,  the  money  to  go  (if 
the  children  are  used  to  helping  out  in  charities)  to 
a  children's  ward  in  a  hospital,  or  for  a  fresh-air 
fund :  or,  if  they  have  not  this  gracious  habit  and 
would  give  the  money  grudgingly,  let  them  keep  it 
for  a  "raw-material  fund"  for  more  costumes  for 
the  next  performance.  Or  have  them  give  the 
"play"  simply  as  the  main  feature  of  one  of  their 
frequently  recurring  informal  "children's  parties." 
The  costumes,  wigs  and  accessories  can  be  put  away 
in  a  big  box  or  trunk  ready  to  call  on,  for  the  next 
play. 

In  this  case,  as  with  the  little  boy  who  wished  he 


108  SELF-RELIANCE 

was  an  Indian,  the  children  have  been  stirred  out  of 
the  tendency  of  vaguely  and  passively  longing  for  a 
thing,  and  roused  to  take  some  action  about  it. 
They  have  had  some  experience  of  a  mental  process 
most  vital  to  the  masterful  intelligent  ordering  of 
their  lives,  in  bringing  a  partly  unformulated  de- 
sire consciously  up  before  their  deliberate  thought, 
and  considering  it  closely  and  coherently.  Instead 
of  suffering  a  dim  emotional  ache,  they  have  learned 
to  ask  themselves  the  honest  questions  which  solve 
so  many  difficulties  in  later  life, — such  questions  as 
these :  "Now  exactly  what  is  it  that  I  want  ?  What 
can  I  do  about  getting  it?  If  I  am  not  able  to  get 
exactly  that,  is  there  some  modification  of  it  which 
I  might  get?  Am  I  willing  to  give  the  time  and 
effort  necessary  to  get  this  modification?  If  not,  my 
desire  for  it  can  not  be  very  deep." 

Do  not  let  the  little  boy  who  wants  to  be  an  acro- 
bat in  the  circus  receive  an  impatient  categorical 
denial  of  his  preposterous  request.  Give  him  an 
old  mattress,  or  a  pile  of  hay  in  the  barn  to  practise 
on.  Set  him  to  turning  somersaults  at  first.  Then, 
if  his  desire  continues,  find  some  older  boy  or  some 
gymnasium  instructor  who  can  show  him  how  to 
walk  on  his  hands,  or  do  the  "baby  swing"  off  a  bar. 
One  of  two  things  will  shortly  happen.  Either  he 
will  decide  that  the  circus  business  is  less  attractive 
than  he  fancied,  or  he  will  develop  a  fondness  for 


DREAMS   COMING   TRUE  109 

gymnastics  that  will  give  him  an  absorbingly  healthy 
interest  throughout  adolescence,  long  after  the  am- 
bition to  perform  in  a  circus  ring  has  been  forgot- 
ten. In  no  case  will  he  think  to  himself,  "I  wanted 
to  lead  a  free  and  interesting  life,  but  my  family 
prevented  it :  they  never  sympathize  with  me !" 

FOR   REFERENCE 

Dramatization,  S.  E.  Simmons  and  C.  I.  Orr 
(Scott,  Foresman  &  Co.). 

The  Indian  Wigwam,  C.  A.  Williams  and  G.  A. 
Williams  (Stokes  &  Co.)'. 

When  Mother  Lets  Us  Act,  S.  G.  S.  Perry  (Mof- 
fat,  Yard  &  Co.). 


CHAPTER  X 

FINANCIAL  SELF-RELIANCE  AND  RESPONSIBILITY 

BECAUSE  children  are,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
incapable  of  being  economically  independent, 
it  is  too  often  taken  for  granted  that  there  is  no 
way  to  teach  them  economic  responsibility  until  they 
can  actually  earn  their  own  livings.  It  is  true  that 
the  teaching  of  any  abstract  principle  rests  of  ne- 
cessity upon  accurate  information  about  the  facts, 
and  upon  practical  acquaintance  with  those  facts. 
And  it  is  true  that  the  teaching  of  financial  respon- 
sibility is  no  exception  to  this  rule.  But  we  are  too 
prone  to  overlook  the  fact  that  it  is  only  money 
getting  of  which  children  can  have  little  or  no  prac- 
tical experience,  and  money  getting  is  but  half  of 
economic  independence  and  financial  responsibility. 
Money  spending  is  quite  as  important  a  science, 
though  as  a  subject  of  serious  study  it  is  sadly  neg- 
lected. There  is  nothing  in  the  fact  of  being  chil- 
dren which  need  cut  off  our  sons  and  daughters 
from  a  great  deal  of  accurate  information  and  con- 
siderable practical  experience  with  the  ins  and  outs 
of  wise  money  spending.  But  there  is  a  great  deal 
in  the  fact  of  their  being  Americans,  which  will  shut 

110 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        111 

them  off  from  such  information  and  experience  un- 
less we  parents  make  a  very  determined  effort  to  see 
that  they  get  the  proper  training.  For  the  whole 
spirit  of  our  country  and  age  is  against  us  in  the 
effort.  Outside  the  family  we  will  nowhere  find 
any  allies  in  this  training.  All  of  which  simply 
shows  how  vitally  essential  it  is  that  we  should  see 
to  it  that  our  children  are  not  left  uninformed  of 
facts  and  tendencies  that  have  so  large  an  influence 
on  their  formation  of  the  general  habits  of  self- 
reliance  and  responsibility. 

All  over  the  country  there  are  successful  schools 
which  devote  themselves  to  the  instruction  of  sales- 
men. Men  naturally  acute,  keen-witted  and  force- 
ful find  wherever  they  turn,  well-written  books 
and  experienced  teachers  to  perfect  them  in  the  art 
of  selling.  The  ideal  of  this  vast  army  of  sales- 
people is  not  to  sell  to  people  that  which  they  de- 
sire and  for  which  they  feel  a  legitimate  need.  No, 
any  fool  can  sell  under  those  conditions.  Their 
avowed  ideal  is  to  cultivate  their  personality,  their 
imagination,  their  knowledge  of  psychology,  until 
they  are  masters  of  the  situation  and  can  sell  people 
what  they  do  not  desire  and  do  not  need,  and  in 
many  cases  can  not  afford.  In  the  picturesque  lan- 
guage of  one  of  these  highly  gifted  individuals, 
"When  I'm  in  tip-top  condition  I  can  sell  a  man 
the  shirt  on  his  own  back." 


112  SELF-RELIANCE 

Add  to  this  great  army  of  resolute,  well-drilled, 
experienced  salesmen,  the  innumerable  scintillating 
department  stores  where  the  best  quality  of  brain 
is  put  into  tempting  passers-by  to  become  pur- 
chasers :  add  to  this  the  loose,  vague  American  open- 
handedness  and  distaste  for  the  idea  of  thrift ;  add 
to  this  a  population  of  untrained  women  whose 
creative  occupations  are  for  the  most  part  gone, 
and  who  without  preparation  or  thought  are  pushed 
by  circumstances  into  copious  buying,  and  the  sum 
total  is  enough  to  stagger  the  imagination.  Every- 
body accepts  as  a  matter  of  course  the  energy,  the 
intellectual  effort,  the  acumen  which  are  bestowed 
upon  learning  how  to  sell.  Schools  and  classes  and 
text-books  for  salesmen  seem  the  most  natural 
things  in  the  world  to  Americans.  Nobody  no- 
tices that  there  are  only  a  very  few,  scattered  and 
faint-hearted  books  which  attempt  to  teach  the  art 
of  wise  buying  for  a  family,  and  none  at  all,  not 
one,  which  expounds  the  great  art  of  not  buying 
what  you  don't  need.  And  yet,  in  our  industrial 
society  organized  as  it  is,  a  considerable  part  of 
one's  usefulness,  and  a  large  part  of  one's  happi- 
ness depends  upon  one's  developing  somehow  the 
capacity  not  to  buy.  Those  who  never  acquire  that 
capacity  go  down  to  shipwreck  in  modern  America 
as  surely  as  morphine  victims  or  paranceics.  Those 
who  painfully  do  acquire  a  certain  amount  of 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        113 

ability  not  to  buy,  do  so  in  the  most  casual,  hap- 
hazard fashion,  not  conscious  of  what  they  are 
about,  saved  by  a  healthy  reflex  instinct  from  which 
(although  it  is  a  mental  one  and  ought  to  be  fully 
under  their  conscious  control)  they  are  as  detached 
as  from  the  battle  of  the  white  blood  corpuscles  with 
invading  germs. 

Most  women  are  occupied  necessarily  so  often 
with  the  legitimate  buying  of  goods,  which  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  old  home  creation  of  goods, 
that  it  is  very  hard  for  them  to  resist  the  subtly 
phrased  temptation  to  buy  for  the  sake  of  buying, 
which  is  injected  into  their  veins  from  every  maga- 
zine advertisement,  from  every  show-window,  from 
every  whiffling  change  of  fashion.  The  cases  are 
not  infrequent  in  which  a  mind  otherwise  normal 
succumbs  entirely  to  the  overwhelming  suggestion, 
and  falls  a  victim  to  a  mania  as  unbalanced  (and 
almost  as  dangerous)  as  the  homicidal  mania. 
Many  and  many  an  alienist  can  tell  of  cases  of 
young  and  healthy  women  in  insane  asylums,  who 
sit  all  day  long  ordering,  and  ordering,  and  order- 
ing goods,  who  laboriously  write  orders  for  every- 
thing advertised  in  the  magazines,  who  order  half 
a  dozen  Pierce  Arrow  cars,  and  five  dozen  solid  sil- 
ver table  services,  and  for  whom  a  mail-order  cata- 
logue brings  on  almost  a  delirium.  And  those  of 
us  who  are  not  alienists  but  only  somewhat  experi- 


114  SELF-RELIANCE 

enced  in  life,  know  of  tragic  cases  in  our  own  cir- 
cles in  which  this  lack  of  mental  equilibrium,  this 
superinduced  monomania  has  not  gone  far  enough 
to  warrant  confining  the  victim  in  an  asylum,  but 
where  the  happiness  of  a  whole  family  is  wrecked 
by  the  malignant  aberration.  The  humorous  adapta- 
tion of  the  maxim  attributed  to  English  sportsmen, 
"It's  a  fine  day,  let  us  go  out  and  kill  something," 
into  the  American  feminine  motto,  "It's  a  fine  day, 
let  us  go  out  and  buy  something,"  raises  but  a  grim 
and  uneasy  smile  on  the  lips  of  honest  observers  of 
American  life.  There  are  some  jokes  that  are  too 
pointed ! 

It  seems  extraordinary  in  view  of  all  these  cir- 
cumstances, that  there  is  nowhere  any  systematic 
course  offered  for  the  training  of  buyers,  the  pro- 
fession which  the  vast  majority  of  American  women 
take  up,  whether  they  have  any  talent  for  it  or  not. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  in  some  schools  occasional 
detached  lectures  given  on  the  buying  of  a  few  com- 
modities. The  cooking-school  teacher  gives  a  lec- 
ture or  two  or  a  demonstration  or  two  about  the 
buying  of  meats.  The  sewing  teacher  makes  an 
occasional  remark  about  the  buying  of  fabrics  and 
the  teacher  of  hygiene  gives  an  annual  warning 
about  buying  too  much  candy.  Since  this  advice, 
such  as  it  is,  is  much  more  than  was  ever  vouch- 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        115 

safed  to  our  generation  when  we  were  in  the  forma- 
tive period,  we  should  accept  it  for  our  children 
with  all  due  gratitude;  but  it  should  not  blind  us 
to  the  fact  that  our  boys  and  girls  in  growing  up, 
are  rapidly  approaching  a  life  in  which  wise  general 
buying  bears  vitally  on  their  happiness  and  useful- 
ness, and  that  they  are  getting  in  most  cases  no  ex- 
perience or  instruction  whatever  to  guide  them 
through  the  complicated  wilderness  of  a  society 
whose  main  business  seems  to  be  the  production  of 
multifarious  articles  and  the  forcing  them  upon  a 
hypnotized  and  object-struck  public. 

Here  is  a  branch  of  instruction  which  parents, 
if  anybody,  must  take  up.  Here  is  a  subject  which 
can  be  taught  in  the  home  (which  depends  so  much 
on  individual  buying  for  its  conduct)  much  better 
than  in  the  modern  school  where  buying  is  done 
in  vast  wholesale  lots — dozens  and  grosses  and 
hundreds,  which  stun  and  lame  the  sense  of  pro- 
portion of  an  ordinary  individual.  And  here  is 
an  activity  in  which  self-reliance  and  responsibility 
form  the  very  bed-rock  of  a  healthy  life.  If  a  child 
can  be  taught  to  be  self-reliant,  to  depend  on  his 
own  good  sense  as  to  what  he  needs  to  buy  rather 
than  on  the  chance  whim  of  his  neighbors,  many  en- 
tangling and  embittering  complications  of  modern 
life  are  forever  removed  from  his  path.  And  if  he 


116  SELF-RELIANCE 

has  the  habit  of  honest  responsibility  toward  his  ex- 
penditures, he  will  stand  four-square  and  upright 
to  any  later  wind  that  may  blow. 

Now  in  this,  as  in  all  other  attempts  to  instruct 
children,  those  Argos-eyed  detectives  of  insincerity, 
the  parents  will  do  well  to  have  a  private  examina- 
tion of  the  state  of  their  own  souls  before  they  un- 
dertake the  regeneration  of  younger  ones,  and  to 
set  their  own  minds  in  careful  order  before  they 
try  to  clarify  the  ideas  of  their  children.  For  it 
will  not  do  to  expound  a  system  of  sensible  and  cour- 
ageous family  expenditures,  and  then  spend  more 
than  can  be  afforded  for  clothes  or  house-furnish- 
ings intended  not  for  beauty  or  comfort  or  use,  but 
to  arouse  envy  in  others.  Children  waste  no  time 
in  pouncing  on  such  an  inconsistency  in  a  matter 
that  has  been  called  to  their  attention. 

Of  course  the  child  can  not  in  the  nature  of  things 
actually  undertake  the  responsibility  of  much  of  the 
family  buying.  (The  following  chapter  takes  up 
the  question  of  the  money  he  may  very  well  actually 
spend.)  But  he  can  from  an  early  age  be  taken 
into  the  family  councils  on  the  subject,  can  be  pres- 
ent at  that  periodical,  reasonable  and  unhurried 
"taking  account  of  stock"  which  is  the  only  way  ra- 
tionally to  direct  family  expenditures.  With  great 
advantage  to  himself,  he  can  be  present  at,  and  even 
raise  his  small  voice  in,  the  discussion  as  to  the 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        117 

apportioning  of  the  family  income,  and  can  take  in 
by  means  of  repeated  encounters  with  it,  the  law 
which  governs  most  lives:  that  one  must  choose, 
one  can  not  have  everything,  and  that  for  most  of 
us,  if  we  choose  one  thing  we  can  not  have  another. 
If  the  tone  of  these  discussions  is,  as  it  should  be, 
cheerful  and  brave  and  matter-of-fact  in  accepting 
the  necessity  for  choice,  the  child's  character  ma- 
tures in  them  as  corn  matures  in  August  heat.  He 
sloughs  off  painlessly  the  infantile  habit  of  crying 
for  the  moon,  and  develops  all  unconsciously  a  sense 
of  proportion  which  will  save  him  from  the  period 
of  giddy  staggering  to  and  fro,  which  is  too  often 
the  lot  of  young  people  suddenly  released  from  un- 
thinking childish  dependence  into  a  totally  unpre- 
pared-for  economic  independence. 

The  maturing  of  the  mind  and  character  as  a 
result  of  contact  with  the  facts  of  the  world — that 
is  one  definition  of  the  quality  we  call  "responsi- 
bility" and  it  is  surprising  that  parents  should  make 
so  little  use  of  such  a  natural  and  simple  expedient 
for  bringing  the  child  into  contact  with  a  whole 
order  of  facts.  And  yet  there  are  few  families 
where  the  custom  of  family  councils  over  the  ex- 
chequer is  made  the  means  for  giving  the  children 
a  sense  of  financial  responsibility.  There  are,  alas, 
innumerable  American  families  in  which  adoles- 
cents of  fourteen,  fifteen,  sixteen,  have  been  kept 


118  SELF-RELIANCE 

in  the  utterly  irresponsible  condition  of  little  chil- 
dren, who  ask  for  anything  that  comes  into  their 
heads,  just  as  a  little  child  does,  with  no  notion 
whatever  of  the  relation  of  their  demand  to  other 
family  expenditures,  and  who  receive  the  curt  unex- 
plaining  answer  which  should  only  be  given  to  little 
children,  "No,  you  can't  have  it.  .We  haven't  got 
the  money." 

If  the  family  expenditures  are  no  mystery  to  him, 
if  he  has  from  as  early  as  he  can  remember  been 
present  at  a  quarterly  or  monthly,  or  bi-annual  fam- 
ily accounting  and  planning,  he  will  quite  simply 
have  grown  out  of  a  childish  and  irresponsible  atti- 
tude toward  money  as  he  has  grown  out  of  an  in- 
terest in  rocking-horses.  And  he  will  know  before 
he  asks  for  something  whether  it  is  a  reasonable 
request  or  not,  how  it  compares  with  the  amount 
spent  on  other  things.  The  habit  characteristic  of 
the  permanent  "dependent,"  of  asking  for  anything 
on  the  chance  that  this  time  the  keeper  of  the 
purse-strings  may  be  teased  to  loosen  them,  will 
be  left  forever  in  the  past.  It  is  good  for  boys 
to  come  gradually  and  slowly  into  this  knowledge 
of  the  inelasticity  of  a  fixed  sum  of  money,  because 
although  their  later  life  is  quite  sure  to  teach  it  to 
them  somehow,  the  process  is  apt  to  be  violent  and 
painful.  And  it  is  especially  good  for  girls  to 
grasp  this  idea  early  in  life,  because  there  is  always 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        119 

a  chance  that  if  they  do  not  learn  it  then  they  may 
never  become  acquainted  with  it,  and  that  is  as  bad 
as  possible  for  them  and  for  all  who  touch  them  in 
any  capacity. 

Furthermore,  just  as  they  are  present  as  listen- 
ing students  at  family  councils,  they  should  occa- 
sionally be  taken  on  a  well-regulated  buying  trip, 
and  taught  how  to  avoid  that  invention  of  the  Evil 
One,  a  "shopping"  expedition.  Modern  scientific 
investigations  of  stealing  among  children  and  those 
of  immature  minds  agree  that  one  main  cause  is  the 
presence  of  irresistible  temptation  offered  by  care- 
fully arranged  show-windows  and  shop-counters. 
The  merchants  put  every  ounce  of  their  inventive- 
ness into  such  displays  and  we  sheep-like  parents, 
hypnotized  by  advertisements  stating  that  it 
"amuses"  the  children  to  be  taken  shopping,  lead 
our  little  folks  dazed  and  blinking  up  one  aisle  and 
down  another,  so  that  their  weak,  half- formed, 
highly  impressionable  characters  may  feel  the  full 
blast  of  this  fevered  stimulus  to  their  covetousness. 
Instead  of  this,  they  should  with  their  mother  go 
through  her  sane  reasonable  preparations  for  a  buy- 
ing expedition:  the  itemized  statement  of  the  differ- 
ent needs  to  be  covered,  the  decision  before  leaving 
home  as  to  which  are  really  essentials  and  which  may 
be  left  out  if  necessary,  the  clear  general  idea  as  to 
relative  amounts  of  money  to  be  spent.  They  should 


120  SELF-RELIANCE 

have  seen,  so  many  times,  that  it  is  as  familiar  as 
the  multiplication  table,  a  well-ordered,  well-thought- 
out  shopping  list.  It  is  in  itself  an  education  for 
the  difficult  enterprise  of  buying  for  a  modern  fam- 
ily. 

Then  should  follow  the  invigorating  experience 
of  holding  to  the  list  in  the  face  of  the  innumerable 
alluring  temptations  to  depart  from  it,  which  beset 
the  path  of  every  buyer.  With  the  list  as  a  chart, 
and  a  sound  understanding  of  the  fact  that  there  are 
only  one  hundred  cents  to  be  extracted  from  every 
dollar,  as  ballast,  the  mother  and  child  can  safely 
navigate  even  the  perilous  region  of  a  big  depart- 
ment store. 

The  practical  value  of  the  experience  is  very 
great.  An  impression  is  made  on  the  child's  mind 
which  he  never  forgets,  when  he  has  been  present  at 
one  after  another  of  those  brisk,  resourceful  and 
clear-sighted  skirmishes  in  which  his  mother  pits 
her  ingenuity,  her  good  judgment  and  her  philoso- 
phy against  circumstances.  The  curtains  they 
wanted  to  buy  for  the  hall  are  too  costly.  Well, 
then,  let's  see  what  is  the  next  best.  Perhaps  the 
desired  color  could  be  found  in  less  expensive  ma- 
terial. Is  this,  or  is  it  not,  something  which  will 
stand  wear,  and  living  with,  and  frequent  clean- 
ings? How  would  it  harmonize  with  what  is  al- 
ready in  that  room?  Perhaps  after  all,  simple  crisp 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        121 

j 

white  curtains  would  serve  as  well;  and  that  would 

leave  more  for  the  hoarded  vacation  fund.  Or 
would  the  richness  and  warmth  of  the  color  and 
texture  be  worth  sacrificing  something  else  to? 

Such  discussions  and  colloquies  can  lay  no  claim 
to  the  slightest  moral  elevation;  but  they  indicate 
to  the  child,  a  cheerful,  homely  and  purposeful  way 
of  settling  questions  of  expenditure :  and  they  form 
the  best  safeguard  against  "shopping"  as  it  is  gen- 
erally conducted  in  the  United  States,  a  dawdling, 
wistful,  aimless  fingering  over  of  goods  too  expen- 
sive to  be  bought,  and  then  a  dissatisfied  purchase 
of  the  closest  imitation  possible  of  the  costly  arti- 
cle. One  of  the  rules  of  the  game  in  such  educa- 
tional buying  as  a  part  of  child-training,  should  be 
to  conduct  the  enterprise  with  all  possible  expedi- 
tion, to  have  the  list  compact,  and  well-arranged, 
so  that  no  time  will  be  lost,  and  to  despatch  each 
item  as  briskly  as  a  due  consideration  of  its  merits 
,will  allow.  To  be  able  to  do  in  one  afternoon 
sufficient  well-planned  economical  shopping,  so  that 
a  whole  fortnight  may  be  clear  of  the  necessity  of 
! entering  another  shop  (except  to  buy  the  daily 
food) — that  is  a  time-saving  feat  which  might  well 
receive  honorable  mention  from  the  family  gather- 
ing that  evening,  and  which  would  tend  to  give  buy- 
ing the  relative  importance  it  deserves  in  the  conduct 
of  life. 


122  SELF-RELIANCE 

As  the  child  grows  older,  and  has  absorbed  the 
family  atmosphere  of  systematic  and  well-propor- 
tioned expenditures,  he  can  be  trusted  with  an  allow- 
ance of  his  own  (see  following  chapter),  and  as  he 
emerges  into  the  positive  tastes  and  ardent  desires 
of  adolescence  he  should  be  promoted  from  being  a 
mere  onlooker  at  the  family  council-table,  and  should 
have  a  vote  of  his  own  as  to  relative  values.  Every 
privilege  should  be  ballasted  by  the  bestowal  of  a 
new  activity,  and  on  the  adolescent's  broadening 
shoulders  should  now  -be  laid  an  occasional  actual 
responsibility  for  "one  or  another  of  the  financial 
transactions  of  the  family.  "Here,  Frank,  our  ac- 
counts show  that  we  always  spend  every  winter, 
about  so  much  to  get  the  sidewalks  shoveled  free  of 
snow  (or  the  garden  made,  or  the  ashes  taken  away, 
or  the  wood-supply  brought  in,  or  the  grass  mowed, 
or  the  cellar  cleaned,  or  the  rugs  beaten,  or  the  win- 
dows washed,  etc.,  etc.).  How  would  you  like  to 
contract  for  the  job  and  see  if  you  can  make  any- 
thing out  of  it?  You  can  do  it  all  yourself,  or  hire 
a  man  to  do  the  heaviest  part,  or  pay  your  school- 
mates to  help  you — any  arrangement  you  like.  We 
won't  interfere  as  long  as  the  work  is  done  as  well 
as  usual,  but  if  you  make  a  miscalculation,  you'll 
have  to  pay  the  deficit  out  of  your  allowance." 

Or :  "Mary,  what  do  you  say  to  this  plan  for  this 
summer's  vacation?  Our  usual  meat  bill  is  so  much. 


FINANCIAL    SELF-RELIANCE        123 

If  you  can  feed  us  as  well  as  we  usually  fare,  and 
yet  make  something  out  of  buying  the  meat  and 
fish,  you  are  welcome  to  your  profits.  Of  course, 
if  the  meals  aren't  good  you  lose  your  chance." 

But  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  this  financial  edu- 
cation should  bring  out  the  fact  that  buying  goods 
is  not,  as  too  many  women  feel  it,  an  entertaining 
way  of  passing  an  idle  hour  or  so,  two  or  three 
times  a  week.  Children  who  for  years  have  been 
in  contact  with  a  serious-minded,  intelligent,  re- 
sponsible attitude  toward  spending  money,  will 
know  instinctively  that  buying  is  one  of  the  vital 
processes  in  modern  life  which  needs  at  least  as 
much  thought  and  experience  and  training  as  sell- 
ing. Never  having  seen  it,  they  will  never  fall  into 
the  slip-shod  method  of  hand-to-mouth  buying, 
which,  done  without  any  forethought  or  careful 
planning,  dribbles  aimlessly  along,  occupying  a  part 
of  nearly  every  day,  which  might  better  be  devoted 
to  useful  labor.  They  will  be  as  ashamed  to  be 
obliged  to  "run  out  for  a  spool  of  thread  or  some 
pins,"  as  they  would  to  have  to  send  out  at  a  meal 
for  salt  or  sugar.  The  purchase  of  supplies  needed 
for  the  family  will  be  given  careful  thought,  and 
condensed  into  widely  spaced,  energetic  and  com- 
pendious hours  of  buying,  conducted  with  the  same 
brisk  purposefulness  as  the  periodical  cleaning  of  a 
room,  or  doing  of  the  weekly  washing — one  morn- 


124  SELF-RELIANCE 

ing  a  week,  or  fortnight,  or  month,  given  up  to 
buying,  and  no  thought  given  the  matter  in  the  in- 
tervals. 

Armed  with  this  system,  this  mental  attitude  and 
with  the  recollection  of  the  sage  who  cried  out  in 
devout  thankfulness,  "How  fortunate  I  am  in  the 
number  of  things  I  do  not  want !"  our  children  are 
headed  straight  for  financial  responsibility  and  sta- 
bility. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ALLOWANCES 

"TN  MAKING  his  annual  statement  of  the 
A  budget,"  defines  a  writer  on  the  British  Con- 
stitution, "the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  gives 
a  view  of  the  general  financial  policy  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  at  the  same  time  presents  an  estimate  of 
the  probable  income  and  expenditure  for  the  next 
twelve  months." 

Unless  the  house  mother  is  prepared  to  be  in  this 
sense  the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  she  can  ac- 
complish nothing  in  the  way  of  training  her  chil- 
dren by  means  of  allowances.  Every  writer  on 
child-training  is  frequently  asked  one  or  all  of  the 
following  questions:  "What  do  you  think  of  al- 
lowances for  children?  Should  they  be  small,  for 
pocket  money  only,  or  large  to  include  all  expenses  ? 
At  what  age  should  they  begin?"  And  most  edu- 
cators of  experience  answer  sorrowfully  that  if  the 
general  family  habit  of  expenditure  is  not  based  on 
a  system  involving  reason,  forethought  and  self- 
control,  the  less  said  about  allowances  for  children 
the  better.  Large  or  small  they  will  do  no  good  un- 

125 


126  SELF-RELIANCE 

less  the  child  has  before  him  a  daily  example  of 
forethought  in  expenditure. 

The  key  to  the  situation  is  the  budget  system. 
The  budget  system!  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  all 
wisdom  in  the  matter.  Without  it,  no  matter  how 
large  the  income,  there  are  confusion  and  waste  and 
demoralization.  With  it,  no  matter  how  rigid  the 
economy  needed,  there  are  harmony  and  proportion 
and  responsibilty.  If  there  is  a  budget  system  al- 
ready in  force,  allowances  for  children  are  inval- 
uable aids  to  the  growth  of  their  self-reliance. 
Without  it  allowances  are  worse  than  useless  since 
the  habit  of  careless,  unthinking  and  improvident 
spending  of  money  is  worse  than  a  cloistered  lack 
of  any  experience  whatever  in  spending  it. 

The  term,  "budget  system,"  must  not  be  taken 
to  mean  something  formidable  and  complicated. 
Many  a  woman  who  never  heard  the  word  in  her 
life  runs  her  family  by  that  system.  Many  a  woman 
who  would  be  quite  overcome  if  asked  to  make  a 
definite  statement  of  the  "general  financial  policy" 
of  the  family,  has  yet  by  a  characteristically  fe'm- 
inine  directness  of  mind,  a  competent  grasp  on 
the  financial  situation.  Such  a  one  might  very 
well  be  imagined  as  making  the  following  state- 
ment: "Now,  Peter,  your  father  gets  so  much  a 
year.  We  spend  such  and  such  proportions  of 
that  for  housekeeping  expenses,  amusement,  travel, 


ALLOWANCES  127 

doctors,  etc. ;  as  you  know  from  the  family  accounts. 
And  you've  seen  that  every  year  we  spend  about  so 
much  for  you.  We  think  you're  old  enough  now 
to  have  that  divided  up  into  twelve  parts,  and  have 
it  as  a  monthly  allowance.  We  want  you  to  do  with 
your  own  accounts  as  we  do  with  the  family  mat- 
ters :  before  you  spend  a  cent  make  an  estimate  as 
to  how  much  you'll  need  to  spend  for  the  bare  neces- 
sities, and  be  sure  that  you  have  enough  to  buy 
clothes  and  shoes  and  school-books,  before  you 
spend  anything  on  skates  or  candy." 

The  sooner  the  son  of  that  woman  has  an  allow- 
ance, the  better  for  him.  She  has  learned  herself, 
and  can  teach  him  the  principle  of  responsibility  in 
expending  money,  which  is  forethought, — not  spend- 
ing anything  without  having  a  clear  idea  of  its  re- 
lation to  the  general  proportion  of  other  sums  spent, 
and  to  the  income  expected. 

But  no  optimist  can  claim  that  such  a  mother  rep- 
resents all  of  her  sex.  Women  such  as  she  need  to 
go  no  further  in  this  chapter.  And  yet  there  will  be 
plenty  of  others  who  would  do  well  to  read  on. 
Incredible  as  it  seems,  we  are  constantly  being  in- 
formed by  investigators  that  there  are  many,  many 
American  mothers  and  wives  who  do  not  know  the 
exact  income  they  have  to  count  on,  and  worse  than 
this,  who  do  not  try  to  know  because  exact  knowl- 
edge would  mean  a  definite  limitation  to  expendi- 


128  SELF-RELIANCE 

ture.  As  in  so  many  other  phases  of  child-training, 
efforts  directed  upon  the  child  alone  are  of  no  use 
unless  accompanied  by  a  reconstruction  of  the  fam- 
ily life.  Just  as  it  is  idle  to  expect  to  train  a  child 
to  physical  self-help  when  his  mother's  most  vio- 
lent exertion  is  to  submit  her  body  to  massage,  it 
is  idle  to  try  to  train  a  child  to  financial  self-reli- 
ance when  his  mother's  system  of  expenditure  is  to 
buy  as  long  as  the  money  holds  out,  and  complain 
when  the  supply  runs  low. 

But  where  there  is  even  an  approach  to  rational 
methods  in  the  home,  allowances  for  children  are 
excellent  and  reliable  devices  for  training  toward 
responsibility.  Most  financial  irresponsibility  does 
not  come  from  downright  dishonesty,  but  from  a 
hazy  and  inaccurate  idea  about  the  purchasing  power 
of  money;  and  to  look  on  at  even  the  wisest  spend- 
ing of  another's  money  will  not  drive  home  to  the 
human  mind  the  limitations  of  money,  as  will  some 
actual  experience  in  planning  expenditures  and  ap- 
portioning an  income.  Continued  experience  with 
real  cash  and  its  exasperating  habit  of  vanishing 
into  dentists'  bills  and  underwear  instead  of  buying 
hats  and  theater  tickets,  is  a  great  inculcator  of  rea- 
sonableness in  this  matter. 

Another  one  of  the  many  advantages  of  the  al- 
lowance system  is  that  it  can  not  be  well  applied, 
indeed,  will  not  work  without  a  great  deal  of  talk- 


ALLOWANCES  129 

ing  over  and  discussion  of  the  abstract  principles 
involved  in  each  concrete  case.  And  every  rational 
occasion  for  talking  over  common  interests  is  an 
opportunity  added  to  the  number  all  too  few,  in 
modern  life,  for  intimate  contact  between  child  and 
parent.  The  parent  should  have  the  matter  clear  in 
his  own  mind  before  it  is  taken  up,  and  be  able  to 
give  a  clear  and  logical  exposition  of  the  principles 
upon  which  any  sane  economic  life  is  ordered.  He 
should  not  only  harp  vigorously,  as  all  parents  de- 
light in  doing,  upon  the  mere  brute  necessity  of  not 
spending  more  money  than  you  have ;  he  should  also 
delight  to  show  the  various  devices  he  himself  has 
learned,  for  extracting  from  the  money  at  your 
command,  the  greatest  amount  of  satisfaction.  And 
he  should  know  how  to  marshal  the  army  of  satis- 
factions which  have  nothing  to  do  with  money  at 
all.  He  should  appeal  to  the  sporting  instinct  for 
mastery  of  conditions,  rather  than  repining  at  them, 
and  should  try  to  arouse  a  lively  feeling  of  interest 
in  the  ingenuity  developed  by  the  struggle  to  har- 
monize one's  desires  and  one's  resources.  The 
study  of  one's  needs  and  desires  and  the  attempt  to 
gratify  them  by  legitimate  means  is  after  all,  taken 
in  its  best  sense,  the  main  occupation  of  our  lives, 
and  the  sooner  the  child  begins  to  be  intelligently 
conscious  of  his  needs  and  the  cost  of  supplying 
them,  the  more  skilfully  will  he  later  be  able  to  dis- 


130  SELF-RELIANCE 

pose  of  his  resources  so  as  to  secure  the  best  possible 
effect. 

The  parent  should  adhere  honestly  to  the  theory 
underlying  the  budget  system :  that  is,  to  an  attempt 
reasonably  to  estimate  the  needs  beforehand,  and 
to  apportion  money  according  to  decisions  taken 
after  deliberate  thought,  rather  than  according  to 
the  fortuitous  pressure  of  the  moment.  The  set- 
tling of  the  amount  of  the  allowance  should  there- 
fore under  no  circumstances  be  arbitrarily  assumed 
by  the  parent :  "Now,  I  think  ten  dollars  a  month 
will  about  cover  what  you  need."  It  must,  on  the 
contrary  be  undertaken  in  a  prayerful  spirit  of  sci- 
entific exactitude  and  should  be  based  on  exact 
information  as  to  past  expenditures  for  the  child. 
It  is  well,  indeed,  to  precede  the  giving  of  an  allow- 
ance by  a  period  of  probation,  during  which  the 
child,  though  not  deciding  the  expenditures  made 
for  him,  is  required  to  keep  an  account  of  them  as 
the  data  upon  which  his  allowance  will  be  based. 
This  preliminary  account-keeping,  which  may  last 
three  months  or  a  year  according  to  circumstances, 
is  in  itself  an  excellent  experience  for  the  child, 
arousing  in  him  in  most  cases,  the  most  naively 
astonished  consciousness  of  the  complexity  of  his 
needs, — a  consciousness  which  comes  in  life  to  less 
well-prepared  young  people  with  a  thunderclap  of 
tragedy.  Underwear,  shoes,  night-clothes,  dentists' 


ALLOWANCES  131 

bills,  books,  toys,  travel — all  the  list  which  haunts 
the  anxious  dreams  of  modern  parents,  should  be  set 
down  honestly  and  systematically.  It  is  an  educa- 
tion in  itself  for  the  average  child  of  a  comfortably 
well-to-do  family  to  realize  that  stockings  do  not 
grow  on  bushes,  and  that  even  such  tiresome  things 
as  rubbers  must  be  paid  for  with  the  same  variety 
of  cash  as  is  used  for  the  purchase  of  roller-skates. 
After  all  the  information  is  gathered  and  ordered, 
an  estimate  should  be  made  by  both  parent  and 
child  jointly,  as  to  the  sum  that  will  cover  these 
multifarious  needs.  And  then,  as  fast  as  possible, 
the  child  should  be  allowed  the  experience  of  really 
spending  the  money  himself,  or  really  deciding 
which  are  the  more  vital  things  for  him. 

Am  I  asked  skeptically :  "Would  you  calmly  allow 
an  eight-year-old  girl  to  spend  half  a  year's  income 
on  a  set  of  furs?"  No,  of  course  not.  An  eight- 
year-old  girl  is  too  young  to  be  given  the  responsi- 
bility for  all  the  money  expended  for  her.  But  she 
is  by  no  means  too  young  to  have  her  attention 
called,  as  a  regular  thing,  to  the  proportions  kept 
in  what  is  spent  for  her.  She  is  not  too  young  to 
go  over  regularly  with  her  mother  an  itemized  ac- 
counting of  the  money  used  for  her  needs.  And 
a  child  who  is  made  aware  thus  from  early  child- 
hood of  the  necessity  for  harmony  and  suitability 
of  expenditure,  may  safely  be  trusted  at  fourteen 


132  SELF-RELIANCE 

not  to  spend  an  undue  amount  on  non-essentials. 
The  principle  of  the  mother-may-I-go-out-to-swim 
jingle,  applies  to  nothing  more  patly  than  to  the 
spending  of  money.  There  is  no  way  to  learn  how 
to  spend  money  wisely  except  by  spending  it.  And 
modern  happiness  depends  to  a  notable  degree  upon 
the  wise  expenditure  of  money! 

The  one  thing  to  be  avoided,  which  vitiates  the 
whole  system,  is  the  practise  of  doling  out  irregu- 
lar additions  to  the  allowance,  under  pressure  from 
the  child.  If  the  allowance  is  not  big  enough  to 
cover  the  items  specified  in  the  agreement,  make 
it  larger,  or  cut  down  the  number  of  items,  or  make 
a  definite  advance  to  be  repaid  promptly  out  of  the 
next  month's  allowance,  or  simply  refuse  more 
money,  under  no  matter  what  temporary  stress, — 
anything  businesslike  and  regular.  Do  not,  to  gain 
a  tranquil  half-hour  after  dinner,  fish  out  whatever 
bill  happens  to  be  on  top  in  your  pocket.  The  ques- 
tion of  an  allowance  is  a  serious  one,  which  affects 
much  of  the  future  happiness  of  the  child  and  of 
those  dependent  on  him,  and  it  should  be  treated 
in  a  serious  way,  giving  to  the  question  of  honest 
and  wise  money  spending  the  dignity  and  worth  to 
which  its  place  in  human  life  entitles  it.  The  child's 
problems  in  spending  money  should  be  gravely  and 
carefully  weighed  and  discussed,  trivial  though  they 
may  seem.  His  facilely  earning,  facilely  spending 


ALLOWANCES  133 

father  should  rigorously  repress  the  natural  instinct 
to  say  to  himself,  "Great  Scott,  it's  ten  times  more 
bother  to  figure  that  all  out  than  to  give  the  boy  a 
dollar  bill  and  have  him  happy,"  just  as  the  modern 
mother  is  learning  to  repress  her  natural  instinct  to 
say,  "Oh,  it's  so  much  more  trouble  to  show  the 
children  how  to  dress  themselves  than  to  do  it  my- 
self!" The  principle  at  stake  in  the  question  of 
proportions  to  be  spent  on  shoes  as  compared  with 
baseball  mitts,  is  one  which  may  decide  the  success 
of  a  future  business  enterprise.  And  the  principle 
at  stake  in  the  question  as  to  the  choice  between 
patent-leather  slippers  and  good  books  is  almost 
certain  to  affect  acutely  the  welfare  of  a  family  in 
the  next  generation. 

The  allowance  is  another  step  in  the  progress  of 
making  the  child  responsible  for  his  own  actions 
and  his  own  life,  and  as  such  merits  the  most  seri- 
ous consideration.  Financial  problems  loom  large 
in  the  lives  of  most  of  us.  And  there  are  few  finan- 
cial problems  which  are  not  encountered  in  minia- 
ture with  the  spending  of  a  child's  allowance. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ADOLESCENT  GIRLS 

MOST  American  families,  if  asked  to  testify, 
would  raise  up  their  voices  in  a  heartfelt  as- 
sertion that  of  all  periods  of  childhood  adolescence 
is  the  most  troublesome,  perplexing  and  exasperat- 
ing to  adults ;  and  between  boys  and  girls,  the  girls 
cause  vastly  more  daily  irritation  in  home  life.  The 
age-old  and  very  wholesome  tradition  that  the  back- 
ground of  a  girl's  life  is  her  home,  means  that  her 
family  are  helplessly  cognizant  of  every  one  of  her 
whims  and  her  fluctuations  of  feeling,  her  sudden 
dissatisfaction  with  what  she  has  always  liked,  her 
fits  of  noisy  high  spirits  and  her  unaccountable 
periods  of  black  depression.  This  is  hard  on  the 
family  and  hard  on  the  girl. 

Now  it  is  an  axiom  that  plenty  of  interesting 
occupation  is  one  of  the  best  remedies  for  all  men- 
tal and  moral  ills;  and  experience  shows  that  ado- 
lescent girls  who,  by  some  accident,  are  put  in  a 
position  of  more  or  less  responsibility  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  family  life  escape  a  considerable  amount 
of  the  chills  and  fever  characteristic  of  their  age. 

134 


ADOLESCENT   GIRLS  135 

Every  one  has  known  cases  of  girls  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen  placed  in  practical  charge  of  the  home  by 
their  mother's  death,  or  the  need  for  the  mother  to 
go  out  as  a  wage-earner,  and  every  one  must  have 
remarked  the  thoughtful  steadiness  and  patience 
which  such  girls  show,  not  perhaps  in  comparison 
with  adult  women,  but  with  their  giggling,  petulant, 
self-absorbed  schoolmates. 

Yet  we  all  feel,  and  feel  rightly,  that  a  responsi- 
bility caused  by  such  an  upheaval  in  family  life, 
is  rather  too  extreme  and  sobering  a  burden  to 
wish  to  impose  upon  every  girl.  The  lesson  of 
such  cases  is  not  one  to  be  taken  literally;  but  it  is 
by  no  means  to  be  disregarded  by  thoughtful  par- 
ents when  the  inevitable  friction  between  mother 
and  growing  daughter  appears. 

Like  all  relations  between  human  beings,  the  re- 
lation between  mother  and  growing-up  daughter 
can  not  be  discussed  without  going  back  to  the  na- 
ture of  things,  without  at  least  a  passing  reference 
to  all  sorts  of  abstract  considerations.  So  when 
the  girl  of  fourteen,  or  sixteen  or  even  twelve  (ac- 
cording to  her  temperament)  shooting  up  suddenly 
into  tall  maidenhood,  begins  to  rebel  at  her  posi- 
tion in  the  house,  is  no  longer  the  cheerful  child, 
ready  to  be  feet  and  hands  to  her  competent  mother, 
it  is  well  for  that  mother  to  put  her  competent  wits 
to  work  upon  a  problem  harder  even  than  success^ 


136  SELF-RELIANCE 

ful  housekeeping.  She  is  not  doing  her  duty  by  her 
suddenly  unreasonable  child,  if  she  tries  to  insist 
that  her  daughter  continue  to  occupy  herself  with 
the  odds  and  ends  of  housekeeping,  dusting  and 
filling  the  flower-vases,  or  if  she  checks  the  sudden 
peevish  and  ungrateful  criticism  of  family  ways  by 
a  sternly  repressive,  "It  has  always  been  good 
enough  for  your  father  and  me !  I  think  we  know 
what  is  the  suitable  way  to  furnish  the  parlor.  What 
do  you  know,  at  fifteen,  about  setting  the  table 
compared  to  what  my  years  of  experience  have 
taught  me?"  If  she  finds  herself  making,  or  tempted 
to  make,  such  perfectly  justifiable  remarks,  let  her 
sit  down  for  a  long  quiet  questioning  of  her  own 
heart.  The  time  has  come  when  not  only  the  girl, 
but  the  mother,  needs  to  get  out  of  a  groove  too 
deeply  worn,  needs  to  make  the  terrible  wrenching 
effort  which  it  costs  all  human  beings,  to  look  over 
the  top  of  their  rut  and  contemplate  the  immensity 
of  the  blue  sky. 

The  first  thing  of  which  it  is  well  to  remind  her- 
self is  that  everybody,  even  the  sacred,  much-senti- 
mentalized-over  mother  of  children,  owes  a  duty  to 
be  as  useful  as  possible  to  the  world.  During  the 
tremendously  absorbing  childhood  of  her  sons  and 
daughters  she  has  had  a  long  security  on  that  point. 
She  has  felt,  and  felt  rightly,  that  she  had  been  as 
useful  as  any  one  possibly  could  be.  The  danger 


ADOLESCENT    GIRLS  137 

of  her  position  is  that  she  is  too  apt  to  acquire  a 
set  habit  of  so  thinking  which  does  not  alter  as  cir- 
cumstances alter.  And  the  arrival  of  another  woman 
in  her  house  (  for  that  and  nothing  else  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  arrival  at  adolescence  of  a  daughter)  is 
the  very  best  occasion  for  her  to  meditate  (while 
there  is  yet  time)  on  the  dreary  fate  of  mothers 
and  housekeepers  who  are  nothing  but  mothers 
and  housekeepers.  Now  is  the  moment  for  her 
to  give  the  intricate  machinery  of  family  relations 
a  dextrous  turn,  which  engages  the  cogs  of  her 
life  and  her  daughter's  life  in  a  firm  new  grip.  Now 
is  the  time  to  have  the  wide  vision  and  philosophic 
foresight  which  her  daughter  can  not  have,  and 
which  she  needs  vastly  more  than  the  exhortation 
to  keep  her  hands  off  her  mother's  business. 

The  point  which  the  mother  should  see  is  that 
it  is  her  "business"  only  so  long  as  it  is  necessary 
for  the  welfare  of  the  family  for  her  to  do  it.  There 
is  nothing  sacred  about  housekeeping,  and  the  re- 
sentment which  the  average  woman  feels  when 
"her"  home  and  "her"  housekeeping  are  touched 
by  her  daughter's  ideas  and  tastes  is  about  as  rea- 
sonable as  that  of  a  nurse  who  would  resent  the 
growing  strength  and  energy  of  a  recovered  pa- 
tient. Instead  of  clinging  with  embittered  exas- 
peration to  every  scrap  of  her  home  authority  in 
details,  the  mother  who  looks  far  into  the  future 


138  SELF-RELIANCE 

should  welcome  the  opportunity  to  step  a  little  out- 
side the  home  which  has  absorbed  her  strength  so 
jealously  and  by  one  and  the  same  action  leave  more 
room  inside  the  home  for  a  personality  growing 
stronger  and  obtain  more  freedom  for  the  exercise 
of  her  own  energy  and  ripe  force,  which  also  should 
have  been  growing  stronger  with  the  passage  of  the 
years.  The  daughter  should  not  be  the  only  one 
to  grow  in  strength  and  desire  to  conquer  obstacles 
and  to  achieve.  As  she  grows  into  a  larger  place 
in  the  home,  the  mother  should  grow  into  a  larger 
place  in  the  community,  from  which  she  may  look 
back  (not  with  the  wounded  vanity  felt  by  most 
home-bound  mothers)  but  with  a  large,  humorous 
tolerance,  upon  the  changes  and  experiments,  many 
of  them  futile  and  childish,  of  the  daughter  in  the 
house. 

Like  all  changes  which  involve  growth,  this 
should  take  place  by  slow  and  imperceptible  de- 
grees. On  the  girl's  sixteenth  birthday  the  mother 
should  not  say :  "Well,  since  you  do  not  like  the  way 
I  run  the  house,  I  will  leave  it  to  you;  and  I  will 
devote  myself  exclusively  to  promoting  the  better- 
ment of  the  housing  of  the  poor." 

That  sort  of  an  exordium  would  be  as  bad  as 
possible  on  all  counts.  In  the  first  place,  that  is  far 
too  much  responsibility  to  put  upon  a  girl  of  six- 
teen, who  should  be  giving  a  large  share  of  her  en- 


ADOLESCENT    GIRLS  139 

ergy  to  acquiring  her  formal  education.  In  the 
second  place,  the  process  should  have  been  begun 
long  before  she  reached  sixteen.  And  third,  most 
important  of  all,  it  betrays  that  irritation,  that  spirit 
of  recrimination  which  the  mother  should  never 
show,  should  never  allow  herself  to  feel  toward 
that  young  woman  who  is  her  daughter.  It  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  girl  that  she  loses  her  old  childish 
satisfaction  with  everything  in  her  home.  It  is 
the  emergence  of  that  instinct  for  home-making 
about  which  in  the  abstract  the  mother  is  so  prone 
to  make  sentimental  remarks,  but  which  she  fiercely 
resents  when  it  is  directed  to  her  home,  which  she 
considers  already  "made."  The  fact  is  that  it  is 
not  her  home  (unless  she  is  a  very  selfish  and 
short-sighted  woman).  It  is  the  background  for 
family  life,  and  as  such  the  young  girl  has  a  right 
to  have  opinions  about  it.  And  furthermore  the 
narrowness  of  her  experience  makes  these  matters 
vastly  more  vital  to  her  than  they  should  be  to  her 
mother,  who  with  the  passage  of  years,  ought  to 
have  acquired  an  interest  in  larger  matters.  The 
mother  who  with  a  hurt  tone  in  her  voice  wrangles 
with  her  fifteen-year-old  daughter  about  the  ad- 
visability of  decorating  the  respectable  family  beef- 
steak with  mashed-potato  roses  and  a  wreath  of 
parsley  is  not  much  more  than  fifteen  herself,  in 
spite  of  her  wrinkles  and  gray  hair.  If  she  has 


140  SELF-RELIANCE 

occupied  the  years  with  growing  as  rapidly  as  her 
daughter  has,  she  will  say  calmly :  "Yes,  many  peo- 
ple do  like  it  fixed  that  way.  Fve  never  had  time 
to  do  it  because  I've  always  been  so  busy  with  you 
children.  But  if  you  want  to  start  a  window-box 
of  parsley  in  the  kitchen  and  learn  to  make  the  po- 
tato decorations  from  your  domestic  science  teacher 
in  school,  I'll  be  very  glad  to  turn  over  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  beefsteak  to  you  as  a  regular  thing. 
Only,  of  course,  you  must  see  that  the  beefsteak 
itself  is  properly  cooked,  too." 

Such  a  course  brings  about  several  excellent  re- 
sults. The  first  is  the  acquiring  by  the  child  of  the 
knowledge  that  household  frills  are  not  to  be  had 
by  whistling.  If  she  cares  enough  about  the  mat- 
ter to  raise  the  parsley  and  personally  see  to  the 
preparation  of  the  food,  she  will  have  added  a  val- 
uable item  to  her  home  activities.  If  she  finds  the 
labor  required  seems  to  cost  more  than  the  result 
is  worth  she  will  have  acquired  a  sense  of  propor- 
tion which  will  serve  her  well  in  her  later  life.  In 
the  first  case  the  mother  will  find  her  labor  lightened 
by  one  item,  and  in  the  second  she  will  be  gratified 
by  a  closer  understanding  between  herself  and  her 
daughter  due  to  their  experience  of  the  same  phe- 
nomenon and  their  coming  to  the  same  decision  in 
regard  to  it. 

It  is  well  in  this  whole  matter  of  the  gradual 


ADOLESCENT    GIRLS  141 

change  of  relations  between  mothers  and  daugh- 
ters, for  the  mother  as  the  older  and  wiser  to  expect 
to  take  to  herself  the  more  generous  role,  to  meet 
the  girl  a  little  more  than  half-way,  to  be  consider- 
ably more  indifferent  to  the  question  of  her  personal 
dignity  (of  which  she  is  sure)  than  the  girl  can 
be  about  her  own  (which  is  such  a  new  and  untried 
possession).  She  should  shield  the  girl's  vanity 
from  shock  by  permitting  her  from  the  first  to  work 
on  her  own  responsibility,  to  have  a  complete  sec- 
tion of  the  household  activities  given  her,  with 
which  she  may  struggle  unobserved  by  wounding 
adult  advice  or  sympathy.  She  should  not  try  to  keep 
the  adolescent  in  her  old  little-girl  position  of  scul- 
lery-maid to  her  mother.  It  is  better  for  her  to  take 
all  the  responsibility  for  one  meal  a  week  (Sunday 
evening  supper  as  not  absolutely  essential  to  the  fam- 
ily's health,  is  an  excellent  one  to  begin  with)  rather 
than  to  be  expected  to  pare  the  potatoes  for  all  the 
dinners.  If  she  prepares  the  breakfasts  for  the  fam- 
ily, she  should  not  be  expected  to  be  responsible  for 
any  part  of  the  other  meals.  In  other  words,  between 
mother  and  daughter,  as  between  most  other  human 
beings  working  together,  friction  is  avoided  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  avoiding  too  incessant  contact ; 
and  the  intelligent  mother  can  utilize  this  new  need 
to  be  out  of  the  daughter's  way  by  betaking  her- 
self more  or  less  to  activities  outside  the  home,  for 


142  SELF-RELIANCE 

which  in  most  cases  she  has  already  the  beginnings 
of  an  interest. 

The  mother  who  is  not  too  prickly  as  to  externals 
can  even  very  well  afford  to  take  to  some  extent  in 
the  home,  the  position  of  worker  subordinate  to  her 
daughter.  "Now,  Margaret,  you  are  sure  from 
your  high-school  training  in  domestic  science  that 
you  can  run  the  house  comfortably  on  less  than  I  do. 
If  you  can,  you're  welcome  to  what  you  save.  But 
of  course  you  can't  do  all  the  work  yourself,  any 
more  than  I  have  since  you've  been  a  big  girl.  You 
tell  me  what  part  of  the  work  you'd  like  to  have  me 
responsible  for;  and  I'll  see  to  that,  and  leave  the 
managing  to  you."  Is  the  mother  who  reads  these 
lines  appalled  at  her  position  under  such  conditions  ? 
If  so,  it  is  because  she  has  kept  her  eyes  so  exclu- 
sively fixed  on  her  housekeeping  that  she  has  for- 
gotten that  it  is  only  a  means  to  an  end,  and  by  no 
means  an  end  in  itself.  If  as  she  labored  through 
the  childhood  of  her  little  folks  she  has  looked  over 
the  edge  of  the  nest  where  all  we  mothers  are  so 
happy,  she  has  seen  plenty  of  other  interests  in  the 
world  to  which  she  may  turn  when  she  is  permitted 
to  relax  her  concentration  on  home  life.  If  at  the 
first  hint  that  she  is  no  longer  so  absolutely  neces- 
sary or  so  supreme  inside  the  four  walls  of  her 
home,  she  turns  pale  with  indignant  surprise  and 
repels  the  idea  hotly,  it  is  because  she  knows  sub- 


ADOLESCENT    GIRLS  143 

consciously  that  she  has  allowed  herself  to  be- 
come fit  for  nothing  else  than  for  the  occupation 
which  has  now  gone  forever  from  her  life, — the 
running  of  a  home  for  the  best  interests  of  little 
children.  And  yet  even  in  such  cases,  there  is  no 
need  to  repine,  for  there  is  scarcely  a  community  in 
the  country  which  would  not  benefit  by  organized 
care  for  those  children,  little  and  big,  whose  mothers 
are  obliged  to  work  away  from  them,  in  order  to 
help  support  them. 

This  proposed  gradual  shifting  of  relative  re- 
sponsibility inside  the  home  is  complicated  in  many 
families  by  the  presence  of  younger  children  or  ease- 
loving  adults,  who  do  not  fare  so  well  under  the 
inexperienced  regime  of  the  girl  as  with  the  mother, 
"broken  in"  as  she  is  by  years  of  acquaintanceship 
with  the  idiosyncrasies  of  that  particular  family. 
But  there  are,  even  here,  decided  advantages  in  a 
general  shake-up  of  the  home-staff.  In  the  first  place 
a  general  shake-up  is  always  good  for  any  staff 
which  has  been  for  many  years  monotonously  step- 
ping around  and  around  the  same  treadmill.  In  this 
case  it  is  sure  not  only  to  initiate  the  ambitious  girl, 
little  by  little,  into  some  of  the  real  difficulties  of 
homekeeping  for  a  real  family  of  varied  interests; 
it  not  only  forcibly  detaches  the  home  mother  from 
a  concentration  on  home  ways  which  is  almost  sure 
to  have  become  too  intense  for  her  own  good ;  but  it 


144  SELF-RELIANCE 

furnishes  to  too  comfortable  adults  the  tonic  expe- 
rience that  the  heavens  will  not  fall,  though  their 
coffee  be  not  balanced  on  the  exact  spot  between  too 
strong  and  too  weak,  which  happens  to  suit  their 
tastes,  and  that  after  all  they  can  continue  to  live 
and  do  their  work,  though  no  watchful  hovering 
house-angel  divines  their  chance  whim  for  a  par- 
ticular chair  in  a  particular  spot. 

As  for  the  younger  children,  the  ten-  and  twelve- 
year-olds,  used  to  an  imperious  and  instantly  heeded 
voicing  of  their  desires,  it  will  do  them  no  harm  to 
encounter  occasionally  instead  of  the  familiar 
downy  softness  of  their  brooding  mother,  the  metal- 
lic sternness  of  youth  like  their  own,  with  youth's 
unsentimental  clairvoyance  into  the  wiles  and  ego- 
isms of  other  youth.  Moreover,  a  moderate  amount 
of  responsibility  for  the  happiness  and  welfare  of 
younger  children,  if  gradually  taken  on,  might  actu- 
ally awaken  some  of  the  dormant  maternal  instinct 
in  our  handsome  American  girls,  the  existence  of 
which  we  so  poetically  assume,  but  which  manifests 
itself  with  startling  infrequency  in  the  average  self- 
centered  young  lady  whose  only  serious  concern  in 
life  has  been  to  pass  her  examinations  in  school. 
Lastly,  the  mother,  submitting  with  laughing  grace 
to  the  new  rules,  may  find  that  in  her  new  temporary 
role  of  equal,  and  comrade,  and  humorous  co-rebel, 


ADOLESCENT    GIRLS  145 

she  is  nearer  to  the  younger  children  than  in  her 
traditional  position  of  autocrat  and  law-giver. 

Nobody  can  claim  that  such  an  experience  will  be 
the  calmest  and  most  tranquil  passage  in  the  life- 
journey  of  a  family;  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
having  too  long  and  too  unbroken  calmness  and 
tranquillity.  There  may  be  less  soothing  regularity, 
but  there  will  also  be  more  laughter  and  more  inti- 
mate acquaintanceship.  The  house  mother  who  for 
years  has  fostered  and  cherished  an  atmosphere  of 
regularity  and  unbroken  comfort,  may  be  surprised 
to  find  that  it  has  developed  into  sultry  stagnation, 
and  that  the  inhabitants  of  her  home  may  greatly 
thrive  and  flourish  under  the  stirring  challenge  of 
the  west  wind  of  change  and  variety. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

MODERN    PARENTS  AND  THE   SCHOOLS 

SO  far,  this  book  has  been  concerned  solely  with 
individual  effort,  with  the  attempt  to  influence 
the  child  in  his  own  home,  where  we  parents  are  ac- 
customed to  look  for  him,  and  to  deal  with  him. 
But  observant  parents  will  not  be  surprised  to  find 
many  pages  of  a  book  even  for  parents,  given  over 
to  the  child  in  school.  They  will  not  be  surprised 
because  observant  parents  are  becoming  aware  that 
the  amount  of  traditional  home  life  is  diminishing 
as  rapidly  for  the  child  as  for  the  adult.  They  are 
becoming  aware  that  to  set  one's  own  house  in  order 
is  not  enough  in  educational  matters  any  more  than 
in  sanitary  affairs. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  one  element  in  a  modern 
parent's  life  that  is  newer  than  the  dawn  of  his 
scared  unprepared  feeling  of  personal  responsibility 
for  the  school  system.  Here  is  something  that  vi- 
tally affects  the  welfare  of  his  children,  and  about 
which  he  ought  to  have  an  intelligent  opinion.  But 
how  can  he  have  an  intelligent  opinion  on  a  subject 
that  perplexes  professional  experts  to  the  point  of 

146 


PARENTS   AND    SCHOOLS          147 

hair-pulling  ?  And  yet,  when  he  considers  the  incal- 
culable influence  that  the  modern  school  has  on  his 
own  children,  he  is  profoundly  penetrated  with  the 
need  for  parents  as  well  as  for  experts  and  special- 
ists, around  the  educational  council  chamber. 

There  has  not  always  been  this  need.  In  the  days 
when  the  school  assumed  nothing  but  formal  aca- 
demic instruction  in  the  three  R's,  parents  felt,  with 
justice,  that  their  advice  was  neither  wanted  nor 
needed  by  school  authorities.  We  took  care  of  all  the 
multifarious  phases  of  the  child's  existence  summed 
up  in  the  expression,  "his  home  life,"  and  with  tran- 
quil minds  left  questions  of  geography  and  long  di- 
vision to  his  teachers.  As  far  as  those  subjects  go, 
there  is  even  less  than  ever  any  need  for  our  ama- 
teur attitude.  I  doubt  if  our  unprofessional  ideas 
about  the  method  of  attacking  arithmetic  in  the  third 
grade  will  ever  be  a  beacon  light  to  any  teachers. 
But  nowadays  the  school  is  gradually  taking  over 
a  study  about  which  the  ideas  of  a  parent  have  per 
se,  aptness  and  weight.  This  other  subject,  which 
the  school  never  used  directly  to  touch,  and  which 
the  home  always  cared  for  as  a  matter  of  course, 
is  character-building.  Some  of  that  must  nowadays 
be  accomplished  in  school  or  not  be  accomplished  at 
all.  Somehow,  insensibly,  there  has  come  a  change 
upon  home  life  which  makes  it  increasingly  hard 
for  children  to  acquire  there,  and  there  only,  as 


148  SELF-RELIANCE 

they  formerly  did,  the  necessary  lessons  in  independ- 
ence of  character,  industry,  integrity  of  reasoning, 
initiative,  helpfulness,  endurance.  The  children  are 
not  in  their  homes  for  long  enough  periods  of  time; 
and  when  it  comes  to  that,  neither  are  we  parents ! 
The  homes  are  not  the  same.  The  paraphernalia  is 
lacking  for  teaching  those  subjects,  so  much  more 
important  (with  all  respect  to  teachers)  than  any 
instruction  in  the  rules  for  computing  interest. 

Now,  all  this  means  that  parents  have  no  longer 
an  excuse  for  not  concerning  themselves  with 
schools ;  that  teachers  can  not  forego  the  active  co- 
operation that  formerly  was  not  necessary;  that  a 
book  addressed  to  parents  must  have  a  great  deal  in 
it  about  schools  and  their  relations  to  modern  life. 
There  are  innumerable  indications  that  Americans 
are,  as  a  whole,  beginning  to  feel  that  something 
of  immense  importance  is  involved  in  the  question 
of  adjusting  modern  life  so  that  children  may 
not  be  forced  by  its  conditions  into  spineless  in- 
ertia. Hung  over  the  fiery  conviction  that  modern 
schools  do  not  adequately  meet  this  problem,  the 
educational  pot  boils  fiercely  and  casts  up  a  great 
steam  of  new  ideas.  Educators  everywhere  in  the 
country  are  realizing  with  dismay  that  a  changed 
organization  of  society  means  a  vital  change  in  the 
relation  of  children  to  life;  and  if  we  fathers  and 
mothers  are  not  to  be  left  behind,  we  also  must 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS  149 

face  honestly  and  struggle  mightily  with  the  prob- 
lem. 

I  know  that  most  of  my  readers  will  give  a  bored 
groan  to  have  me  trot  out  the  old,  old  war-horse  of 
the  transformation  of  the  home  under  the  condi- 
tions of  a  highly  organized  industrial  society.  But  it 
must  be  done,  because  from  that  and  from  nothing 
else  comes  the  whole  of  our  problem.  When  the 
mother  of  a  family  carded  and  spun  the  wool  and 
wove  the  cloth  to  clothe  the  family ;  when  she  salted 
down  pork  for  the  winter  use,  and  dried  apples  and 
pumpkins,  and  made  soft  soap,  and  knit  the  stockings, 
and  did  all  the  cooking  and  sewing,  the  question  of 
self-help  for  her  daughters  solved  itself.  They  were 
constantly  in  the  presence  of  tangible  industry  in 
which  their  help  was  valuable  and  necessary.  By  the 
mere  process  of  growing  up  in  such  a  home  they 
learned  perforce  the  habits  of  steady  industry,  the 
competent  capacity  to  overcome  obstacles,  the  unsur- 
prised acceptance  of  the  necessity  for  work,  which 
enabled  them  to  take  over  the  care  of  a  home  of  their 
own  with  practised  ease.  When  the  father  farmed  his 
own  land,  or  had  his  cobbling  shop  in  one  room  of 
the  home,  or  his  small  printing  establishment  near 
by,  or  his  carpenter  shop  in  the  barn,  or  his  black- 
smith shop  across  the  street,  and  when  in  addition 
to  his  daily  toil  at  his  perfectly  visible  means  of  live- 
lihood, he  expected  to  have  a  sizable  garden  to  help 


150  SELF-RELIANCE 

out  the  family  diet,  to  patch  the  roof  and  repair 
doors  and  tinker  leaking  panes,  and  help  in  the  au- 
tumn butchering,  then  the  sons  of  the  family  were 
more  ingenious  even  than  most  boys  if  they  man- 
aged to  escape  a  liberal  education  in  handwork. 
Everybody  worked — openly,  patiently,  steadily  la- 
bored to  keep  the  family  going.  There  were  jobs 
suited  to  the  capacity  of  children  of  every  age,  tasks 
performed  not  in  dreary  solitude,  but  companion- 
ably  side  by  side  with  the  father  and  mother,  tasks 
which  visibly  and  actually  benefited  the  family  life, 
and  which  were,  even  to  a  child's  eye,  draped  in  the 
dignity  of  the  essential. 

And  then  there  came  factories  to  perform  with 
more  competence  and  less  cost  most  of  the  manu- 
facturing processes  of  the  home;  there  came  the 
organization  of  industry  into  minute  subdivisions. 
The  father  was  drawn  out  of  the  home  by  this  cur- 
rent. Various  paid  specialists  to  take  his  place 
sprang  into  being,  hirelings  who  came  to  the  home 
to  do  the  mending  and  care-taking  which  he  used 
to  do,  men  who  know  nothing  and  care  nothing 
about  the  life  of  the  home  they  enter,  plumbers, 
painters,  glaziers,  paper-hangers,  etc.,  who  do  their 
work  like  machines  and  depart  forever.  And  finally 
organized  industry  laid  its  mighty  grasp  on  the  work 
of  the  women  in  the  home,  and  snatched  their  useful 
occupations  out  of  their  hands  with  a  completeness 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS          151 

too  familiar  to  need  describing  here.  All  this  is  a 
thrice-told  tale,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  most  parents 
have  as  yet  fully  taken  in  the  absolute  change  it  has 
caused  in  the  life  of  modern  children.  Men  and 
women  in  the  ordinary  walks  of  life  have  been  too 
frantically  busy  adjusting  themselves  to  these  al- 
tered conditions  to  have  time  for  a  thoughtful,  sus- 
tained inquiry  into  the  lot  of  their  children.  Women 
especially,  caught  unawares,  have  cried  out  in  dis- 
may at  their  empty  hands;  have  caught  wildly  at 
what  small  scraps  of  usefulness  were  still  possible 
under  what  remains  of  the  old  system,  but  have 
not  as  a  class  realized  that  the  tidal  wave  of  organ- 
ized industry  has  left  their  little  daughters  and  sons 
stranded  as  high  as  they.  They  have  gone  forward 
mechanically,  trying  to  bring  up  the  children  as  of 
old,  fumbling  vainly  for  the  old  occupations  that 
are  gone,  and  seeing  no  substitutes  for  the  training 
that  can  not  be  recalled  from  the  past.  Some  have 
clung  with  stubborn  persistence  to  the  outgrown 
shell  of  the  old  methods,  have  taught  their  little 
girls  how  to  do  fine  hand-needlework  on  patchwork 
quilts,  have  insisted  that  their  little  boys  shall  do 
"chores"  even  if  the  chores  have  to  be  artificially 
manufactured  with  despairing  ingenuity.  Other 
women  cooking  by  gas  or  electricity  have  seen  the 
futility  of  expecting  to  teach  their  boys  to  be  indus- 
trious by  having  them  split  kindlings,  but  not  hit- 


152  SELF-RELIANCE 

ting  upon  anything  else  for  them  to  do,  have  aban- 
doned them  to  the  public  schools  and  the  streets, 
hoping  with  the  invincible  American  faith  in  the 
former  that  somehow  the  schools  will  solve  the 
problem. 

For  a  time  the  schools  showed  no  realization  that 
there  was  a  problem  for  them  to  solve.  They  had 
been  established  in  America  at  a  period  when  the 
children  were  taught  at  home  all  they  needed  to 
know  with  the  exception  of  actual  "book-learning," 
when  the  school  was  expected  to  provide  for  the 
child's  knowledge  of  the  three  R's  and  needed  to  do 
no  more.  Secure  in  its  confidence  in  the  home,  pub- 
lic education  as  it  learned  how  to  administer  the 
three  R's  more  expeditiously  than  at  first,  gradually 
added  various  branches  of  learning,  colloquially 
known  as  "frills,"  a  bit  of  designing,  free-hand 
drawing,  singing,  and  later,  perhaps  with  a  premo- 
nition of  the  gathering  storm,  it  began  to  provide 
classes  in  wood-working  and  general  "manual  train- 
ing." The  external  fabric  of  public  education  had 
never  presented  a  more  imposing,  glittering  front 
of  costly  success  than  when  the  bomb  exploded.  The 
discovery  was  made  simultaneously  in  many  parts 
of  the  country  that  somehow  the  real  aim  of  educa- 
tion was  being  missed.  Somehow  the  children  fell 
between  the  two  stools  of  the  system  and  the  home. 
They  were  being  physically  very  well  cared  for  at 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS          153 

home,  better  than  ever  before;  and  they  were  be- 
ing taught  more  at  school  than  children  had  ever 
learned  before.  But  neither  at  home  nor  at  school 
were  they  being  prepared  for  actual  life.  When  the 
time  came  for  them  to  stop  "being  educated"  they 
did  not  push  off  into  the  current  of  adult  existence 
with  the  strong  practised  stroke  of  a  trained  swim- 
mer. They  fell  into  it  with  a  frightened  splash  and, 
choking  and  gasping,  struggled  madly  to  keep  their 
heads  above  an  element  entirely  new  in  their  experi- 
ence. A  great  many  times  (humanity  is  a  tough 
nut)  they  learned  the  stroke  before  it  was  too  late, 
but  other  times  (a  tragically  large  number  of  times) 
they  were  so  exhausted  by  the  struggle  with  realities 
that  the  current  washed  them  ashore,  broken  and 
enfeebled  derelicts. 

What  especially  struck  those  first  observing  this 
phenomenon  was  the  fact  that  so-called  education 
seemed  to  have  little  enough  to  do  with  success  in 
the  life  struggle.  Not  a  few  college  graduates  drift 
into  dishwashing  as  a  means  of  support,  and  a  not 
inconsiderable  number  of  very  useful  and  influen- 
tial citizens  never  heard  of  the  binominal  theorem. 
The  airing  of  these  facts,  and  a  great  many  more 
of  the  same  import,  gave  rise  to  an  outcry  that 
still  continues  and  is  more  energetic  than  edifying 
or  profitable.  The  schools  reproach  the  home  with 
failing  to  provide  the  training  traditionally  sup- 


154  SELF-RELIANCE 

posed  to  be  furnished  there;  and  the  homes  shout 
back  at  the  schools,  "What  are  you  for?  Don't  we 
pay  our  school  taxes  ?  Why  don't  you  do  your  share 
and  be  responsible  for  the  children?" 

Since  the  world  of  professional  education  is  much 
smaller  and  more  compact  than  that  of  parents,  and 
also  (we  parents  might  as  well  admit  it)  much  more 
alert-minded  and  less  inertly  given  to  accepting  con- 
ditions as  they  are,  it  is  among  professional  edu- 
cators that  the  first  attempt  is  being  made  to  see 
what  the  situation  is,  and  really  cope  with  it. 
Having  paid  this  tribute  to  educators,  it  is  only  fair 
to  add  that  such  open-minded,  flexible-witted  speci- 
mens of  their  class  are  a  scattering  minority,  and 
that  even  parents  themselves,  halting  and  unintel- 
ligent as  we  confess  ourselves  to  be,  are  no  worse 
than  the  great  mass  of  teachers,  who  go  on  turning 
the  crank  of  the  educational  machine  and  resenting 
all  references  to  the  very  patent  fact  that  what  they 
turn  out  is  not  what  is  needed  by  the  world.  Here 
and  there  a  teacher  of  rare  insight  and  clear  vision 
sees  how  much  good  human  material  is  being  wasted, 
and  striking  out  with  originality  and  force,  casts 
a  light  down  a  new  path.  Doctor  Montessori  is,  of 
course,  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  original  think- 
ers, but  she  is  not  alone.  The  leaven  is  working 
rapidly  in  the  whole  lump.  Scattered  about  in  many 
parts  of  the  United  States  are  various  experimental 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS          155 

schools  that  are  working  out  new  methods.  The 
much-talked-of  school  at  Fairhope,  Alabama,  is  one 
of  these  that  has  fortunately  attracted  a  good  deal 
of  public  attention  (the  more  public  attention  the 
better  in  the  case  of  improved  methods),  and  there 
are  others — more  of  them  than  the  general  public 
realizes.  The  uneasy  interest  in  Garyism  felt  by 
most  big  cities  shows  that  large  centers  of  population 
are  beginning  to  doubt  the  efficacy  of  handsome 
buildings  and  elaborate  equipments  as  sole  means 
of  education. 

Finally,  here  and  there,  some  groups  of  Ameri- 
cans, anxiously  seeking  the  way  out,  are  trying  the 
experiment  of  training  children  directly  for  the 
trades  or  professions  they  may  perhaps  enter  as 
adults.  This  latter  device,  under  its  strictest  form, 
has  recommended  itself  to  the  German  temperament 
as  the  best  means  of  bringing  reality  into  the  edu- 
cation of  children  and  bridging  over  the  gap  be- 
tween their  school-life  and  their  grown-up  life.  It 
has  undeniable  advantages  in  the  way  of  efficiency 
in  disposing  of  a  nation's  population.  If  you  train 
a  boy  to  know  little  beyond  the  plumber's  trade,  the 
chances  are  that  he  will  not  disturb  the  equilibrium 
of  the  commonwealth  by  shifting  from  one  occupa- 
tion to  another.  But  the  national  spirit  of  America 
looks  askance  at  this  rule-of -thumb  method  for 
bringing  children  into  real  life,  and  instinctively  be- 


156  SELF-RELIANCE 

gins  maneuvering  for  more  elbow  room,  for  the 
amplitude  of  choice,  the  flexibility  of  organization 
which  has  been  the  distinguishing  mark  of  Ameri- 
can existence.  This  protest  may  be  unavailing. 
Trade  schools  may  be  our  fate  in  the  end;  our 
daughters  may  be  forced  at  twelve  to  decide  whether 
they  will  be  dressmakers  or  cooks,  and  our  sons  be- 
tween being  carpenters  or  engineers.  The  steam- 
pressure  of  economic  necessity  may  force  us  to  sub- 
mit perforce  to  their  missing  the  fine  tastes  and 
mellow  appreciations  which  come  with  an  ampler, 
less  rigidly  purposeful  training.  But  most  Ameri- 
can parents  are  little  inclined  to  help  this  process 
along;  and  dissatisfied  as  they  are  with  the  present 
system,  are  by  no  means  eager  to  hurry  the  nation 
into  trade  schools. 

But  if  not  trade  schools,  what  then?  We  all  feel 
that  the  school  must  do  more  than  it  ever  has  done 
to  fit  the  child  for  real  life,  must  (since  the  home  is 
less  and  less  influential)  devise  some  means  to  bring 
the  child  into  harmony  with  the  modern  conditions 
into  which  he  is  born,  must  somehow  manage  to 
rouse  in  him  those  qualities  of  responsibility,  initia- 
tive and  purposeful  energy  which  the  old  home  life 
developed.  We  parents  need  not  expect  that  it  will 
do  all  this.  It  can  never  do  all  of  this  in  the  collect- 
ive atmosphere  of  a  school.  Every  child  is  and  al- 
ways will  be  an  individual  human  being,  with  many 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS          157 

individual  needs  and  possibilities  which  must  be 
cared  for  and  brought  out  by  his  own  father  and 
mother,  and  much  of  this  book  has  been  taken  up 
with  attempts  to  simplify  the  problem  of  self-reli- 
ance in  child  life  from  the  parents*  point  of  view 
and  with  regard  to  the  resources  of  modern  homes. 
But  every  child  is  also  a  gregarious  being,  with  a 
great  many  traits  which  are  to  be  found  in  every 
other  child,  and  which  are  best  cared  for  and  devel- 
oped in  community  life,  traits  which  the  schools  must 
learn  to  encourage  to  the  fullest  development.  So 
that  a  large  part  of  the  problem  for  parents  is  the 
providing  of  the  right  kind  of  school  for  their  chil- 
dren one  which  does  not  only  teach  the  three  R's,  as 
it  used  to,  but  which  definitely  takes  over  some  of 
the  training  in  initiative  and  responsibility  which 
used  to  be  done  in  the  home. 

I  think  all  of  us  are  convinced  that  the  signs  of 
the  times  point  to  a  more  or  less  liberal  "voca- 
tional" school  as  the  best  solution  of  our  problems, 
and  that  we  non-professional  parents  must  trust 
experts  to  settle  the  exact  extent  to  which  the  tradi- 
tional bookish  education  ought  to  be  supplanted  by 
training  for  motor-minded  children  who  would  never 
under  any  circumstances  succeed  in  the  professions. 
That  is  a  question  that  must  receive  widely  diverse 
answers,  varying  according  to  the  conditions  of  the 
populations  involved.  Our  attitude  toward  the  tech- 


158  SELF-RELIANCE 

nical  points  in  such  a  discussion  must  be,  perforce, 
the  rather  anxious  but  quite  helpless  expectancy  in 
which  we  wait  while  doctors  debate  the  question  of 
whether  it  is  necessary  absolutely  to  isolate  scarlet- 
fever  patients,  or  whether  it  is  sufficient  closely  to 
screen  the  bed  of  the  patient.  We  can  not  pretend 
to  know  about  the  data  upon  which  the  decisions  of 
experts,  either  medical  or  pedagogical,  are  based. 

But  we  can  and  should  remember  that  we,  and 
not  the  experts,  are  responsible  for  the  general 
health  of  the  children,  and  that  general  health,  both 
physical  and  educational,  is  based  on  no  obscure  and 
disputed  data,  but  on  very  well-known  general  laws 
that  are  quite  simple  enough  for  any  amateur  parent 
to  understand.  Indeed  it  is  generally  acknowledged 
that  general  practitioners,  who  follow  laws  based  on 
good  sense  and  experience  of  life,  are  not  infre- 
quently of  use  in  correcting  the  vision  of  expert? 
whose  eyes  are  too  exclusively  fixed  on  their  own 
specialties.  We  may  know  little  about  scarlet  fever, 
but  have  a  more  realizing  sense  of  the  need  for 
cheer  and  moral  sunshine  in  a  child's  life,  than  his 
very  intelligent  physician.  We  shall  probably  be  of 
little  help  in  making  the  delicate  educational  adjust- 
ments necessary  to  bring  the  school  into  touch  with 
modern  industrial  society;  but  just  because  children 
are  so  vividly  present  to  our  eyes  as  individuals,  we 
may  be  of  help  by  insisting  on  the  need  to  treat  each 


PARENTS    AND    SCHOOLS          159 

child  as  a  personality,  to  give  him  elbow-room  and 
breathing-space,  in  general  to  treat  him  as  a  human 
being,  rather  than  a  cog  in  even  the  most  efficient  of 
educational  machines. 

It  is  an  excellent  thing  to  make  sure  that  a  boy 
with  a  taste  for  machinery  does  not  get  shoved  by 
life  into  an  accountant's  chair;  but  it  is  of  impor- 
tance also  that  the  process  of  inserting  him  neatly 
into  a  suitable  place  in  society  should  not  be  accom- 
panied with  a  weakening  of  his  fiber,  with  a  loss  of 
the  traditionally  American  quality  of  self-reliance. 
Here  is  a  danger  that  parents  ex  officio  can  help 
combat,  because  in  the  nature  of  things  they  deal 
with  children  as  individuals,  rather  than  as  a  mass. 

At  this  point  I  think  I  can  do  no  better  than  to 
stop  the  discussion  of  the  right  kind  of  school  in 
the  abstract,  and  to  describe  an  actually  existing 
school  which  meets  in  a  simple  and  practical  way 
many  of  the  difficulties  besetting  the  average  mod- 
ern school  in  the  average,  normal  American  com- 
munity. To  those  struggling  with  complicated 
problems,  there  is  no  greater  stimulant  than  to  know 
of  others,  similarly  situated,  who  have  conquered, 
and  although  conditions  vary  so  that  solutions  must 
vary  also,  the  existence  and  success  of  a  school  that 
takes  cognizance  intelligently  of  the  new  home  con- 
ditions, must  hearten  and  encourage  every  teacher 
and  parent. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL    (THE   PARK   SCHOOL, 
BUFFALO,   NEW  YORK) 

SOME  wise  man  has  said  that  the  date  of  a 
man's  life  depends  not  on  the  calendar,  but 
on  the  geographical  position  of  his  home.  There 
are  in  remote  parts  of  India  tribes  who  still  dwell 
in  the  Stone  Age,  and  everybody  knows  one  or  more 
philosophers  in  Paris,  or  New  York,  or  London, 
who  live  about  A.  D.  2015.  In  my  own  case,  living 
on  a  side  road  on  the  flank  of  a  mountain  in  Ver- 
mont, it  goes  without  saying  that  I  am  living  about 
fifty  years  ago.  We  do  things  for  ourselves.  That 
is  the  mark  of  a  bygone  generation. 

When  we  want  roast  chicken,  for  instance,  we  do 
not  sit  down  at  a  table  and  order  roast  chicken.  We 
go  out  after  dark,  select  our  fowl,  cut  its  head  off, 
pluck  it,  dress  it  and  in  due  time  roast  it.  Bread 
for  us  means  procuring  the  yeast,  the  flour,  the  salt 
and  the  water,  and  combining  these  ingredients  in 
the  right  proportions.  We  buy  our  milk  from  a 
neighbor.  We  fetch  it  home  ourselves,  and  we  are 
intimately  cognizant  of  the  source  of  it.  If  the  cow 

160 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  161 

is  indisposed,  we  go  without  milk  for  a  few  days, 
and  we  aid  our  neighbor  in  the  strenuous  undertak- 
ing of  giving  the  cow  the  inevitable  linseed  oil.  We 
plow  and  harrow  our  own  garden,  sow  and  water 
and  weed  it,  and  when  the  vegetables  are  ready  we 
pull  or  cut  them  ourselves,  wash  and  prepare  and 
cook  them.  I  f  we  did  not  do  these  things  we  would 
go  without  vegetables. 

Like  the  other  inhabitants  of  1855  or  thereabouts, 
we  read  for  the  most  part  serious  books.  Not  long 
ago  I  was  perusing  several  extremely  serious  books 
relating  to  the  practicability,  or  lack  of  it,  of  Social- 
ism, of  communized  effort  as  a  basis  of  human  life 
when  carried  on  in  detail.  Each  author  had  a  dif- 
ferent opinion,  not  only  about  the  desirability  of  this 
principle  of  organization,  but  about  its  possibility. 
While  I  was  conscientiously  trying  to  weigh  their 
different  arguments  pro  and  con,  I  was  called  away 
from  home  to  look  over  an  open-air  school,  said  to 
be  a  very  modern  school — indeed,  the  most  modern 
of  schools.  I  took  the  night  train  from  home,  spent 
the  night  comfortably  asleep  in  that  magic  carpet, 
the  sleeping  car,  and  woke  up  five  hundred  miles 
and  about  a  hundred  years  from  home.  For  in  that 
first  half -hour  of  fresh  vision,  when  one  looks  at 
a  new  thing  and  really  sees  it,  I  perceived  that  my 
various  authors  were  discussing  the  feasibility  of 
a  condition  that  had  unobtrusively  arrived  under 


162  SELF-RELIANCE 

their  very  noses.    And  everybody  else  was  so  used 
to  it  that  it  had  passed  unnoticed. 

I  took  a  big  street-car — an  enormous,  formidable 
structure  it  seemed  to  me,  used  as  I  am  to  going 
out  to  the  barn  to  hitch  up  before  getting  to  town. 
This  was  soon  filled  with  plainly  dressed  people  (it 
was  early  in  the  morning),  who  absent-mindedly 
dropped  a  five-cent  piece  in  a  little  machine  and 
who,  with  equal  negligence,  pushed  a  button  when 
they  wanted  the  great  machine  to  stop.  They  were 
so  accustomed  to  the  use  of  this  huge  common  car- 
rier that  it  was  as  wholly  theirs  as  ever  the  family 
horse  had  been  their  father's.  To  use  it  was  as  auto- 
matic as  pulling  on  the  right  rein  to  go  to  the  right. 
As  I  looked  out  of  the  windows  and  saw  the  big 
city  waking  up  for  the  day,  I  saw  a  hundred  other 
instances  of  this  automatic  acceptance  of  what  is  still 
being  argued  about  in  books.  All  over  the  city  white- 
uniformed  men  drove  white  carts  up  one  street 
and  down  another.  At  each  house  they  stopped, 
took  out  one  or  two  loaves  of  bread  and  left  them 
in  the  kitchen.  The  women  in  those  kitchens  re- 
ceived this  manna  from  Heaven  without  a  blink. 
They  had,  so  to  speak,  pressed  a  button  and  bread 
ensued.  They  know  no  more  about  yeast  than  I 
know  about  a  spinning-wheel.  And  mixed  in  with 
these  white  carts  drove  other  white  carts  laden  with 
bottles  of  milk,  received  by  those  same  housekeepers 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  163 

with  the  same  obliviousness  of  the  processes  by 
which  milk  is  secured.  No  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  vagaries  of  a  cow  there,  no  rejoicing  over 
the  arrival  of  a  calf.  They  had  dropped  a  nickel  in 
the  slot  (that  is,  they  had  telephoned  to  a  milk  com- 
pany to  supply  them  with  milk)  and  from  that  mo- 
ment to  the  end  of  their  lives  they  need  never  give 
the  matter  another  thought,  beyond  earning  the 
money  to  pay  for  it.  Everything  reduced  itself  to 
that.  If  you  had  enough  nickels  to  drop  you  could 
extract  anything  you  pleased  from  the  slot.  Vege- 
table carts,  meat  wagons,  everything  was  at  hand, 
and  laundry  wagons  whisked  away  the  soiled  clothes 
and  brought  back  clean  ones.  Nor  need  these  mod- 
erns give  any  thought  to  the  problems  of  sewing. 
Another  slot  was  provided  for  that.  We  passed 
block  after  block  of  show-windows  displaying  every 
possible  variety  of  ready-made  clothes  that  could  be 
desired  by  any  possible  woman.  All  that  was  needed 
was  an  ample  enough  supply  of  nickels. 

I  fell  to  wondering  what  they  did  do  with  their 
time,  these  people  who  never  had  to  think  of  yeast, 
or  thread,  or  the  right  diet  for  chickens,  or  which 
is  the  best  soap  for  washing  clothes.  As  far  as  I 
could  judge  from  the  scraps  of  conversation  I  over- 
heard on  the  street-cars,  in  the  shops,  on  the  streets, 
they  thought  chiefly  of  how  to  make  the  money  to 
oil  all  this  vast  machinery.  That  was  natural  enough, 


164  SELF-RELIANCE 

I  thought,  seeing  how  vastly  important  money  was 
to  them,  and  their  faces  looked  so  like  other  peo- 
ple's, like  faces  of  1850  (or,  for  that  matter,  like 
faces  of  1550,  judging  from  contemporary  por- 
traits) ;  they  looked,  in  short,  so  remarkably  like 
everybody  else  that  I  saw  no  reason  to  fear  that  the 
new  system  was  especially  bad  for  the  human  or- 
ganism. 

But  at  once  I  asked  myself  uneasily,  how  about 
the  children  ?  Until  they  are  of  age  to  begin  to  earn 
the  nickels  which  thereafter  they  spend  their  lives 
pushing  into  slots,  what  can  they  do  that  is  their 
very  own  in  this  new  world  of  getting  and  spending 
money?  In  an  existence  totally  separated  from  all 
close  connection  with  the  vital  processes  of  life,  how 
can  the  child  ever  learn  anything  about  the  real  na- 
ture of  things  ?  One  of  these  adults,  brought  up  un- 
der the  old  system,  knows  perfectly  well  (although 
he  may  have  forgotten  it  for  practical  purposes) 
that  bread  does  not  grow  in  loaves  done  up  in  waxed 
paper.  But  how  can  a  child  who  sees  nothing  but 
the  button  pressed  and  the  desired  object  produced 
ever  come  to  close  enough  grips  with  real  processes 
to  know  where  he  is  in  the  world,  what  kind  of  a 
world  it  is,  what  the  nature  of  things  is?  How  can 
he  strike  his  tap-root  deep  enough  into  the  subsoil 
of  actuality  to  sustain  him  all  through  the  droughts 
and  storms  of  complicated  modern  life?  His  father 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  165 

is  for  the  most  part  invisible,  making  money.  His 
mother  is  busy  spending  it  as  conscientiously  as  she 
knows  how.  Neither  of  those  processes  can  be  well 
shared  by  a  child.  His  home  is  as  full  of  buttons 
to  be  pressed  as  his  father's  money  can  buy  and  his 
mother's  ingenuity  can  devise.  Was  it,  I  wondered 
uneasily,  a  very  good  form  of  activity  for  the  child 
to  do  nothing  but  to  press  them,  and  passively  to 
accept  the  resultant  phenomena?  And  yet  in  all 
this  world  of  infinitely  subdivided  effort,  what  high 
lookout  place  could  there  be  where  children  could 
see  things  in  a  true  perspective  ? 

Then  I  came  to  the  school  and  saw  that  these  pro- 
digious moderns  had  thought  even  of  that  contin- 
gency. In  this  very  latest  thing  in  schools  a  look- 
out place  has  been  provided.  I  stared  at  that  place 
for  some  time  before  I  suddenly  recognized  what  an 
old  friend  it  was,  although  each  detail  as  it  drew  my 
attention  in  turn  had  a  familiar  look. 

I  saw  first  of  all  a  big  plot  of  ground,  grassed 
deeply,  shaded  by  fine  old  trees  with  a  number  of 
picturesque,  smallish,  dark-green,  open,  shed-like 
buildings,  clustered  near  a  large  old-fashioned  house. 
Through  the  gate  in  the  fence  streamed  a  procession 
of  children — some  who  had  come  in  automobiles, 
and  others  again  on  the  two  standing  feet  of  them, 
as  the  Celtic  phrase  goes.  All  of  these  children  had 
one  trait  in  common.  Without  exception  they  all 


166  SELF-RELIANCE 

turned  in  at  the  gate  eagerly  and  hurried  along  from 
the  street  into  the  big  screen  enclosure.  Mostly  they 
skipped  and  jumped  as  they  arrived,  although  some 
were  too  intent  on  their  purpose  for  that.  They  ran 
about  like  children  who  return  home  from  a  visit 
and  who  take  up  the  familiar  occupations  with  spon- 
taneous zest.  One  little  boy  squatted  for  a  pro- 
longed, patient  inspection  of  a  small  plot  of  ground 
fenced  around  with  stakes.  "It's  my  garden,"  he 
explained  to  me.  "I  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  here  to 
see  if  the  seeds  have  come  up  yet." 

"When  did  you  plant  them?"  I  asked. 

"Yesterday,"  he  said,  almost  applying  his  eye  to 
the  ground  in  his  hopeful  search. 

I  left  him  to  see  what  the  elegantly  attired  twelve- 
year-old  just  out  of  a  costly  limousine  wanted  so 
much  to  do  that  she  must  run  at  breakneck  speed 
down  the  path  into  one  of  the  bungalows.  What  she 
wanted  so  much  to  do  was  to  snatch  a  broom  and 
with  it  to  sweep  off  the  catkins  fallen  from  a  birch 
tree  on  the  walk.  Out  in  the  middle  of  the  grassy 
plot  a  mixed  crowd  of  boys  and  girls  played  ball. 
Near  me  two  eight-year-olds  strove  with  a  burning- 
glass  to  concentrate  sunlight  enough  to  set  fire  to  a 
pile  of  fluff.  Beyond  them,  grave'  and  intent,  a  little 
girl — a  very,  very  little  girl — tied  a  white  oilcloth 
apron  over  a  beautiful  smocked  dress  and,  sitting  on 
her  heels,  began  to  daub  green  stain  on  a  chicken- 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  167. 

coop.  The  coop  looked  as  though  the  child  herself 
had  constructed  it.  It  sheltered  a  biddy  and  a  brood 
of  chicks.  The  little  girl  painted  on,  oblivious  of  the 
screaming  fun  of  a  tag-playing  crowd  of  children 
near  her.  She  chewed  her  tongue  earnestly  as  she 
labored.  Her  expression  was  of  entire  and  unal- 
loyed bliss.  Her  hat  fell  off  unnoticed,  and  I  re- 
marked that  it  came  from  New  York,  from  a  very 
expensive  importer's  on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  little 
girl  went  on  in  silent  ecstasy  daubing  green  stain  on 
the  rough  slats  of  the  chicken-coop. 

I  tucked  all  these  heterogeneous  facts  away  in 
my  memory,  meaning  to  try  later  to  arrange  them 
so  that  I  could  make  some  sense  out  of  them.  They 
vaguely  suggested  something  to  my  mind. 

But  there  was  too  much  going  on  then  to  philoso- 
phize. More  children  arriving  in  cars  or  hand  in 
hand  with  fathers  and  mothers,  gave  these  parents 
a  hasty  peck  and  hastened  down  the  walk  with  that 
same  air  of  arriving  at  the  center  of  things.  There 
rose  from  the  scattered  assembly  that  free  roar  of 
chatter  and  laughter  and  shouting  which  delights 
the  ear  of  a  child-lover  and  to  an  imaginative  eye 
hangs  above  a  crowd  of  happy  children  like  a  shim- 
mering aroma  of  vitality. 

Then  a  big  gong  sounded,  and  I  followed  the  chil- 
dren into  a  large  sunny  room,  with  a  fireplace  and 
a  piano.  It  looked  like  the  living-room  of  a  home 


168  SELF-RELIANCE 

with  enough  chairs  set  to  accommodate  an  extra 
number  of  children.  The  children  sat  down  in  rows 
and  took  up  hymn-books.  This  was  evidently  to  be 
the  "opening  exercises."  I  watched  them  with  inter- 
est, a  little  sardonic,  having  heard  that  it  was  be- 
coming increasingly  difficult  to  devise  "devotional 
exercises"  which  would  not  offend  one  or  another 
of  these  twentieth-century  dwellers,  bickering  about 
the  degrees  of  a  faith  which  means  little  to  any  of 
them.  Also  I  watched  for  the  inevitable  bored  and 
herded  expression  which  children  always  assume  on 
such  occasions.  So  far  there  was  none  of  it.  They 
sang  a  hymn  very  heartily,  the  little,  little  ones 
shouting  lustily  and  tunelessly  after  their  delicious 
manner,  wagging  their  heads  in  time  to  the  strongly 
marked  rhythm.  The  others  sang  quite  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  note.  And  they  really  sang,  all  of  them. 
Then  the  principal  stood  up,  companionably  close, 
not  on  a  platform,  but  directly  in  front  of  the  littlest 
of  all,  who  sat  cross-legged  on  the  floor.  She  asked 
for  a  volunteer  to  lead  them.  A  little  girl  trotted 
forward  immediately.  She  stood  there  before  the 
roomful  of  children,  quite  without  self-conscious- 
ness, opened  her  dewy  child's  lips  and  began,  "The 
Lord  is  my  shepherd."  At  once  all  the  others,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  of  them,  caught  her  up  and  went 
on,  "I  shall  not  want."  Their  children's  voices  roll- 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  169 

ing  out  those  sonorous  old  phrases  rang  in  my  ears 
for  many  a  day  after  that.  The  little  leader  went 
back  to  her  place,  and  a  little  boy's  hand  shot  up. 
He  was  beckoned  forward  and  announced,  "The 
earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof."  The 
others  needed  no  more  clue,  and  went  on  with  him. 
"The  world,  and  they  that  dwell  therein."  I  caught 
the  splendor  of  the  words  with  an  inexpressible 
pleasure.  "Who  shall  stand  in  His  holy  place  ?  He 
that  hath  clean  hands  and  a  pure  heart." 

Could  there  be,  I  wondered,  a  skeptic  so  bicker- 
ing as  not  to  feel  his  heart  soar  high  to  hear  that 
age-old  affirmation  made  again  by  those  fresh  souls  ? 
It  now  occurred  to  me  why  the  children  did  not  look 
bored  and  herded.  It  was  because  they  themselves 
were  conducting  the  devotional  service.  They  were 
not  passively  submitting  to  exhortations  from  an 
adult,  they  themselves  were  actively  taking  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  exercises.  And  so  it  continued 
to  the  end,  when  the  principal  bowed  her  head,  and 
all  the  black,  brown  and  flaxen  heads  bowed  with 
her.  The  little,  little  boy  sitting  on  the  floor 
near  her  took  hold  of  a  fold  of  her  skirt  with  his 
chubby  hand  and  held  it  tightly,  while  everybody 
recited  in  unison  the  prayer  to  our  Father  which 
makes  us  brother  of  all  mankind.  At  the  end  the 
little  boy  raised  his  head  and  gave  his  teacher  a 


170  SELF-RELIANCE 

radiant  sudden  smile,  by  the  light  of  which  I  made 
out  the  answer  to  my  question.  That  was  the  smile 
a  child  gives  his  mother. 

And  there  was  the  meaning  of  it  all.  I  took  it 
in  with  a  stinging  of  eyelids.  This  was  his  home. 
He  ran  away  with  all  his  might  from  the  pleasant, 
charming  house,  well  kept,  abundantly  furnished 
with  buttons-to-be-pressed,  which  was  all  the  twen- 
tieth century  permitted  his  loving  parents  to  give 
him ;  he  ran  away  from  that  to  his  real  home  where 
there  was  plenty  for  him  to  do.  It  was  not  his  par- 
ents' fault.  Never  have  parents  taken  such  anxious 
thought  about  their  children's  best  interests  as  now. 
In  fact,  his  mother  was  showing  the  finest  and  high- 
est devotion  to  his  best  interests  by  giving  him  up 
thus  to  this  other  home,  which  could  cope  with  the 
artificiality  of  modern  conditions  so  much  more  suc- 
cessfully than  she  could  single-handed. 

With  this  key  in  my  hand,  everything  else  I  saw 
there  during  a  very  momentous  day  of  sightseeing 
was  clear  to  me.  The  twentieth  century  has  turned 
its  back  squarely  on  the  old-fashioned  home  close 
to  all  the  processes  of  actual  life.  That  much  I  had 
seen  on  my  way  through  the  streets  of  the  city.  I 
knew,  too,  from  those  serious  books  I  had  been 
reading  that  the  twentieth  century  was  very  uneasy 
about  the  effect  of  this  new  regime  on  the  children, 
and  that  in  a  hundred  different  places  and  in  a  dozen 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  171 

different  ways  fumbling  attempts  were  being  made 
to  find  something  which  would  better  fit  the  needs 
of  children.  But  here  was  the  completest  answer  to 
the  new  problem.  And  what  was  it?  There  in  1915, 
in  an  ultra-modern  city,  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  a 
home,  where  every  process  was  open  to  the  child's 
eye,  where  he  took  part  in  all  that  goes  to  make  a 
home,  where,  above  all,  there  was  not  a  button  to  be 
pressed.  And  this  home  called  itself  the  very  latest 
thing  in  schools !  With  twentieth-century  precision 
and  accuracy  it  had  analyzed  the  ideal  of  the  old 
home  and  it  had  reconstructed  everything  in  it  of 
value  to  children. 

Yet  it  was  not  a  reaction,  not  an  unimaginative 
literal  return  to  the  actual  facts  of  an  old-fashioned 
home,  to  processes  now  left  behind  forever.  There 
was  no  attempt  made  to  weave  the  cloth  used,  to  cook 
over  hearth-fires,  to  provide  the  fuel  from  the  woods. 
This  was  a  twentieth-century  home — with  all  the 
modern  apparatus;  but  a  twentieth-century  home 
for  children.  Somebody  with  clear  vision  had  looked 
hard  at  the  old  home,  had  seen  that  its  virtue  re- 
sided not  in  the  making  of  soft  soap,  or  spinning  of 
thread  (which  would  be  folly  to  do  nowj,  but  in 
the  fact  that  the  children  shared  in  whatever  went 
on,  and  this  new,  new  home  had  been  constructed 
around  that  idea. 

Then  I  really  began  to  visit  the  place  and  to  know 


172  SELF-RELIANCE 

what  I  was  seeing.  I  was  not  to  be  put  off  the  track 
by  any  talk  of  modern  pedagogics  or  special  pho- 
netic systems  of  teaching  reading.  Everybody  nowa- 
days has  a  special  phonic  system  of  teaching  reading, 
and,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  they  all  have  about  the  same 
effect  on  the  children.  The  secret  of  that  school  lay 
deeper.  It  lay  deeper  than  the  "entirely  outdoors 
feature"  of  which  I  had  heard  so  much.  I  had  been 
rather  suspicious  about  this.  It  sounded  "faddy" 
to  me  to  go  to  the  trouble  of  keeping  children  out- 
doors in  a  northern  zero  climate,  when  the  universal 
experience  of  the  race  is  that  it  is  more  convenient 
to  work  indoors  in  warmed  rooms;  but  I  was  dis- 
armed at  a  blow  by  the  principal  when  I  put  a  cau- 
tious leading  question  to  her:  "Now,  about  this 
outdoor  business?  How  important  is  it,  anyhow?" 
She  answered  calmly:  "Oh,  not  so  very.  It's 
not  the  real  point  of  my  school  at  all.  It's  just  a 
handier  way  to  manage."  And  when  I  stared  rather 
open-mouthed  to  have  the  wind  taken  out  of  my 
sails  in  this  manner,  she  explained,  patiently  toler- 
ant of  my  slowness  of  comprehension :  "Why,  it's 
so  much  more  practical  and  feasible.  The  children 
are  infinitely  healthier  because  they  are  out-of-doors 
all  the  time,  and  they  don't  lose  time  from  being  at 
home  sick.  They're  almost  never  absent  from  sick- 
ness. And  since  they  never  get  nervously  tired  or 
tense,  as  they  do  indoors,  they  can  accomplish  much 


AN    OUTDOOR    SCHOOL  173 

more  school  work  when  they're  here.  Then  it  costs 
about  a  sixtieth  part  as  much  to  run  up  a  bungalow 
of  rough  lumber  open  on  three  sides  as  it  does  to 
build  a  carefully  constructed  modern  school  build- 
ing and  then  instal  a  costly  system  of  artificial  ven- 
tilation and  heating.  It  costs  such  a  lot  first  to  shut 
the  air  out  and  then  to  let  it  in  again."  As  simple 
as  Columbus'  egg,  I  reflected  a  little  breathlessly  as 
she  went  on :  "Our  buildings  don't  cost  so  much  as 
small  hay-barns,  and  we  find  they  serve  their  pur- 
pose better  than  the  elaborate  plate-glassed,  hard- 
wood-floored, polished  modern  schoolhouse.  They 
cost  a  city  nowadays  almost  as  much  to  build  and 
maintain  as  a  hospital,  you  know." 

Well,  there  was  sense  to  that,  I  had  to  admit;  but 
as  I  had  thought  this  a  school  that  catered  to  very 
well-to-do  families,  I  was  surprised  at  the  emergence 
of  the  very  un-American  element  of  thrift.  A  fur- 
ther inquiry  elicited  the  fact  that  the  principal  who 
has  evolved  this  school  out  of  her  inner  conscious- 
ness and  the  spirit  of  the  times,  did  not  consider  it 
only  as  a  school  for  those  particular  hundred  and 
fifty  children,  but  as  an  irrefutable  proof  of  what 
might  be  arranged  anywhere  for  any  children,  and 
r(with  the  exception  of  the  crowded  districts  of  New 
York  City,  and  a  few  other  very  large  cities,  which 
are  exceptions  to  all  rules)  what  might  be  arranged 
more  easily,  with  less  expense  and  time  for  material 


174  SELF-RELIANCE 

preparation  than  the  imposing  glittering-windowed 
edifices  for  which  Americans  so  devotedly  give  up 
so  large  a  share  of  their  taxes.  It  was  an  idea  so 
new  to  me  that  it  was  startling,  and  so  entirely  feasi- 
ble that  even  its  newness  could  not  prevent  me  from 
seeing  visions  of  colonies  of  such  schools,  as  the 
principal  went  on  to  explain  her  idea  to  me.  We 
were  watching  a  first-grade  class  in  reading.  They 
were  sitting  cross-legged  on  the  floor,  looking  up 
from  their  books  from  time  to  time  to  watch  a  yel- 
low-bird which  flew  in  and  out  of  the  shed-like  room 
gathering  jute  for  her  nest  from  a  bit  of  raveled 
rope.  "They  don't  need  expensive  apparatus,"  said 
this  very  modern  educator-woman  to  me ;  "and  they 
don't  need  anything  complicated ;  the  simpler  things 
are  the  better.  And  simple  things  cost  so  much  less ! 
If  the  same  amount  of  money — oh,  much  less ! — as 
is  now  spent  for  coal,  and  janitor  service,  and  sweep- 
ing halls,  and  oiling  floors,  and  washing  windows, 
and  all  the  up-keep  of  a  beautifully  finished  modern 
building,  could  be  spent  in  giving  the  children  more 
space,  all  the  fresh  air  there  is,  natural  surround- 
ings, home-making  processes  in  which  they  share, 

and  better  teachers "     She  did  not  finish  her 

sentence,  but  I  looked  around  me,  knew  what  she 
would  say,  and  saw  its  truth. 

Natural  surroundings — there  was  the  keynote  of 
the  matter.    Given  those,  an  enormous  number  of 


AN   OUTDOOR   SCHOOL  175 

problems  of  education  solved  themselves.  The  ques- 
tion of  so-called  "discipline,"  for  instance,  does  not 
exist.  The  children  "discipline"  themselves,  just  as 
they  do  in  any  large,  well-run  family.  In  all  that 
crowd  of  free  active  children  there  was  not  one  who 
was  not  too  busy  and  happy  to  waste  time  in  quar- 
reling. They  helped  run  that  school.  Their  own 
convictions  seemed  to  be  that  if  they  did  not,  every- 
thing would  fall  to  pieces.  And  how  they  throve  in 
the  divine  responsibility  for  the  common  welfare! 

They  made  their  own  bookshelves  and  waste- 
paper  baskets,  and  stained  them  green.  They  had 
stained  each  new  bungalow  schoolroom  as  it  was 
put  up.  They  had  arranged  the  apparatus  in  the 
gymnasium,  they  were  laying  out  landscape  gar- 
dener fashion  a  neglected  corner  of  the  grounds. 
When  something  broke  or  wore  out,  it  did  not  van- 
ish into  thin  air  and  return  mended.  The  children 
themselves  took  counsel  how  it  should  be  repaired, 
and  then  did  the  mending  in  their  own  shop.  And 
the  kitchen!  That  was  a  real  kitchen,  such  as  any 
of  the  little  girls  might  have  later  on  to  work  in, 
and  not  a  domestic-science  laboratory.  The  work 
that  was  done  was  set,  like  everything  else  in 
the  school,  in  a  true,  sound  and  sincere  relation  to 
real  life.  The  girls  were  making  a  bread-and-butter 
pudding  that  morning;  not  merely  to  learn  how  to 
make  it,  not  merely  in  order  to  have  it  listlessly 


176  SELF-RELIANCE 

tasted  by  each  one,  as  in  duty  bound  after  all  the 
bother  of  making  it,  but  just  as  should  always  be 
the  case  where  food  is  prepared,  because  some  one 
wanted  very  much  to  eat  it,  because  it  was  needed 
for  the  school  lunch. 

Up  in  the  seventh-grade  class  in  geography  they 
were  also,  so  to  speak,  making  a  pudding  that  should 
be  eaten  and  not  looked  at.  For  they  were  not 
"bounding  states"  in  the  abstract,  nor  reciting  pur- 
poselessly the  products  of  Argentina.  They  were,  to 
begin  with,  conducting  the  recitation  themselves. 
The  teacher,  only  visible  after  some  search,  was  sit- 
ting at  one  of  the  desks,  a  silent,  attentive  note- 
taking  spectator.  The  children  were  in  charge.  An 
eleven-year-old  girl  was  facing  the  class  and  ex- 
plaining, with  occasional  references  to  notes  and 
time-tables,  why,  if  she  were  going  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, she  would  take  the  Southern  Pacific.  She 
laid  special  stress  on  the  interesting  cities  she  would 
pass  through,  the  possibility  of  stopping  over  at 
points  of  interest,  with  statements  of  exact  cost  and 
length  of  time,  and  the  scenery  she  would  see.  The 
rest  of  the  class  listened  in  a  silence  that  had  a  de- 
ceptive air  of  respect  and  conviction.  The  little  girl's 
brief  had  been  carefully  composed.  She  talked  flu- 
ently and  well.  I  am  free  to  confess  that  she  made 
a  deep  impression  on  my  ignorance  of  transconti- 
nental routes.  When  she  finished  I  was  quite  con- 


AN  OUTDOOR  SCHOOL  177 

vinced  that  the  Southern  Pacific  was  the  route  I 
would  choose. 

Not  so  with  the  little  girl's  classmates.  One  by 
one  they  rose  up  to  question  her,  and  out  of  full 
note-books  and  many-times  consulted  geographies 
and  time-tables  to  combat  her  arguments.  The  first 
showed  conclusively  that  the  Northern  Pacific  was 
infinitely  superior  scenically,  and  showed  such  a 
knowledge  of  what  would  be  observed  along  that 
route  that  I  was  quite  abashed.  Another  was  all 
for  crossing  Colorado  and  Utah,  and  supplied  a 
great  mass  of  accurate  and  thoughtfully  compiled 
figures  to  explain  her  choice.  I  was  called  away  in 
the  midst  of  this  energetic  "recitation,"  in  which 
the  teacher  was  totally  forgotten,  and  as  I  went  I 
thought  of  all  the  middle-aged  women  I  know  who 
have  never  mastered  the  use  of  a  railroad  time-table, 
and  who  could  no  more  sensibly  choose  a  route  for 
a  railway  journey  and  select  the  train  to  make  the 
best  connections  than  they  could  walk  on  their 
hands ! 

When  lunch  time  came  and  we  all  sat  down  to 
plainly,  daintily  set  tables,  waited  upon  by  members 
of  the  family  (for  by  this  time  nothing  could  have 
convinced  me  that  those  hundred  and  fifty  children 
were  not  all  brothers  and  sisters),  the  bread-and- 
butter  pudding  was  a  main  feature  of  the  meal.  It 
was  excellent,  and  it  was  appreciated  by  those  chil- 


178  SELF-RELIANCE 

dren — who  all  knew  its  history — in  a  fashion  most 
gratifying  to  the  sixth-grade  cooks.  Being  an  en- 
thusiastic cook  myself,  I  could  share  their  penetrat- 
ing satisfaction,  which  nobody  but  a  cook  ever 
knows,  as  they  heard  the  hearty  clatter  of  silver  on 
china  as  the  spoons  scraped  the  saucers  for  the  last 
bit.  Then  a  small  girl  near  me  jumped  up  on  her 
chair  and  shouted,  "Three  cheers  for  the  bread-and- 
butter  pudding!"  leading  the  ensuing  hurrahs  with 
her  napkin,  like  an  undergraduate  cheer-leader.  I 
should  say  that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  keep- 
ing up  an  interest  in  cooking  in  that  school. 

After  lunch  everybody  rested — as  I  thought  no- 
body but  a  philosopher  or  a  Neapolitan  knew  how 
to.  The  children  wrapped  themselves  in  blankets 
and  sleeping-bags  and  lay  flat  on  the  floor,  and  the 
teachers  did  the  same.  For  fifty  minutes  the  world 
held  its  breath.  I  looked  about  me  almost  with  awe 
to  see  all  those  American  personalities  submitting 
themselves  voluntarily  to  the  influence  of  meditative 
calm.  Some  of  the  children,  especially  the  littler 
ones,  fell  soundly  asleep,  and  several  continued  to 
sleep  rosily  and  deeply  long  after  the  others  had 
risen  and  were  taking  up  their  multifarious  activi- 
ties. The  older  boys  and  girls  looked  steadily  up  at 
the  green-stained  rafters  of  their  school  "rooms"  or 
out  at  the  sky.  I  wondered  what  they  were  think- 
ing about.  It  occurred  to  me  that  probably  their 


AN  OUTDOOR  SCHOOL  179 

fathers  and  mothers  had  never  in  all  their  lives 
given  so  long  a  time  to  quiet  reflection.  It  also 
occurred  to  me  that  they  were  probably  building  a 
wall  against  nervous  prostration  and  nervous  indi- 
gestion and  the  other  wild  beasts  which  assail  mod- 
ern life. 

After  the  rest  hour  was  over  everybody  came  back 
to  life  like  an  acrobat  bounding  into  the  center  of 
the  ring.  I  leaned  from  a  window  and,  unobserved, 
watched  a  crowd  of  boys  and  girls  struggling  might- 
ily with  concrete — mixing  it,  pushing  their  hoes 
through  the  heavy  mass,  cracking  stones  like  little 
roadmakers,  bringing  sand  in  wheelbarrows.  They 
were  constructing  a  concrete  walk.  And  as  I 
watched  them  labor  till  the  honest  drops  stood  on 
their  foreheads,  I  heard  a  ghostly  whisper  in  my 
ears — the  whisper  of  innumerable  parents  who,  all 
over  the  country,  cry:  "We  can't  get  those  chil- 
dren to  do  a  single  bit  of  work  at  home.  In  my 

days  the  boys  did  chores  and  the  girls  did " 

The  whisper  died  away  as  I  realized  that  in  a  mod- 
ern home  practically  no  interesting,  constructive 
work  suitable  for  a  child  is  left  to  do.  There  are 
only  a  few  rags  and  tatters  of  meaningless  drudg- 
ery, the  fringe  that  has  not  yet  been  taken  over 
by  machinery.  The  fourth-graders  I  saw  cleaning 
out  their  hen-house  and  carrying  warmed  water  to 
their  biddies  had  no  objection  to  work  qua  work. 


180  SELF-RELIANCE 

Only  they  need  work  which  in  their  own  phase 
they  can  see  the  sense  of. 

Do  I  hear  an  ironic  question :  "What  has  keeping 
hens  to  do  with  the  multiplication  table?"  If  I  do 
I  will  lay  it  low  with  the  bold  answer:  "It  has  every- 
thing in  the  world  to  do  with  the  multiplication 
table!"  If  I  have  not  specifically  mentioned  the 
methods  of  teaching  reading  and  writing  and  spell- 
ing in  this  most  modern  of  schools,  it  is  because  I 
have  an  ingrained  skepticism  as  to  the  importance 
of  differing  methods  for  teaching  those  subjects. 
I  have  seen  so  many  of  them  work  equally  well.  I 
saw  many  and  many  classes  of  these  outdoor  chil- 
dren being  instructed  in  all  these  subjects.  They 
were  excellent  classes,  making  fine  progress  in  book- 
learning;  they  were  being  taught  very  well,  but  no 
better  than  in  a  good  'many  well-managed  schools. 
And  yet  I  was  not  at  all  surprised  to  hear  that  chil- 
dren going  out  from  this  school  into  other  indoor, 
big-building  schools  are  usually  a  year  in  advance 
of  their  contemporaries  in  all  the  regular  branches 
of  school  studies.  That  is  due,  not  to  the  technical 
excellence  of  their  teaching,  which  is  duplicated  in 
many  a  conscientious  modern  school,  but  precisely 
to  the  tonic  and  exhilarating  effect  of  concrete  walks 
and  keeping  hens  and  making  bread-and-butter  pud- 
dings which  meets  with  applause  and,  better  than 
applause,  with  good  appetites.  It  comes  from  a 


AN  OUTDOOR  SCHOOL  181 

steady  diet  of  non-vitiated  air,  from  frequent  jump- 
ings  up  and  runnings  about  in  outdoor  air,  from  the 
sense  of  spaciousness  and  calm  that  outdoors  brings 
with  it;  it  comes  from  the  poise  and  lack  of 
strain  that  result  from  natural  surroundings.  Ah, 
other  teachers,  teach  they  ever  so  wisely,  need  not 
expect  their  charges  to  pass  such  good  examination 
in  long  division  as  children  who  have  measured  the 
boards  to  make  a  fence  around  their  own  garden. 
Everything  hangs  together  in  this  world ! 

And  because  everything  hangs  together,  I  have 
spent  a  good  deal  of  time  since  I  saw  that  embodi- 
ment of  modern  ideals  for  education  in  wondering 
what  it  really  meant.  What  will  it  mean  in  the  end  ? 
Does  it  mean  that  those  children  who  grow  up  used 
to  simple  natural  surroundings — in  which  a  child's 
soul  and  mind  are  at  home — will,  as  adults,  so  ap- 
preciate these  blessings  that  they  will  insist  that  all 
schools  shall  be  like  theirs?  Will  they  turn  over 
their  babies  to  a  school-house  where  the  almost  lost 
art  of  an  intimate  relationship  with  life  is  preserved  ? 
Or  will  they  go  further  still  and  reconstruct  their 
own  homes  on  that  basis  and  keep  their  children 
with  them?  I  don't  know.  Nobody  knows.  But 
though  I  don't  know  where  the  road  leads,  I  do  not 
fear,  as  I  look  back  on  those  clear-faced,  vital,  vigor- 
ous children,  to  leave  the  future  in  their  hands. 


182  SELF-RELIANCE 

The  school  of  which  the  preceding  paragraphs 
treat  is  the  Park  School  in  Buffalo,  which  from  its 
beginning  is  the  work  of  an  educational  personality 
as  original,  as  clear-thinking  and  as  creative  as  any 
now  struggling  at  first  hand  with  educational  con- 
ditions in  America.  The  school  which  Miss  Mary 
Lewis  has  built  up  in  Buffalo  has  been  chosen  for 
special  detailed  description  in  this  book,  not  only 
on  account  of  its  excellence  and  practicability,  but 
because  of  the  extraordinarily  indigenous  quality 
of  its  creator's  spirit.  Modern  to  the  last  degree, 
and  embodying  educational  theories  coming  from 
the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  the  school  is  a  growth 
out  of  the  soundest  of  American  tradition.  It  is 
Miss  Lewis'  remarkable  achievement  to  have  cre- 
ated a  "new"  and  "radical"  school  which  is  so 
obviously  a  logical  growth  from  the  best  of  our 
national  principle  and  so  obviously  adjusted  to 
American  life,  that  open-minded  American  parents 
need  no  painful  effort  to  see  its  application  to  their 
own  problems.  The  stress  laid  upon  the  character 
and  success  of  the  Park  School  and  the  large  amount 
of  space  given  to  it  in  this  book,  are  justified  in  the 
author's  mind  by  the  fact  that  more  than  any  other 
I  know,  it  is  a  school  from  which  American  parents 
of  to-day  may  extract  ideas  that  concretely  and 
practically  bear  on  their  own  widely  varying  situa- 
tions. 


CHAPTER  XV 

PARENTS  IN   THE  SCHOOLS 

TO  read  of  such  a  school  as  has  just  been  de- 
scribed must  stir  every  parent  to  wistful  regret 
that  it  is  not  a  block  away  from  his  own  home,  and 
that  his  own  children  may  not  learn  there  that  clear 
recognition  of  cause  and  effect,  that  sense  of  respon- 
sibility for  the  welfare  of  their  group,  which  is 
increasingly  difficult  to  teach  them  at  home.  Per- 
haps one  of  the  best  things  we  parents  can  do  to 
assist  in  solving  the  problem  of  self-reliance  for 
children  is  to  turn  part  of  our  energies  toward 
making  over  the  schools  until  practical  self-help  is 
possible  in  them,  toward  transforming  them  from 
"institutions  of  learning"  into  "educational  homes" 
for  children. 

Now  this  undertaking  is  one  before  which  most 
American  parents  feel  a  shamefaced  shyness,  not 
entirely  to  their  discredit  nor  entirely  due  to  that 
much-harped-upon  parental  inertia  which  educators 
are  never  tired  of  casting  up  to  us.  It  is  true  that 
as  a  rule  we  know  far  more  about  local  politics  than 

183 


184  SELF-RELIANCE 

about  the  condition  of  the  school  playground  where 
our  children  spend  many  important  hours,  and  more 
about  the  personality  of  our  favorite  baseball  player 
or  actress  than  about  the  personality  of  the  woman 
who  teaches  our  sons  and  daughters.  But  it  is  only 
fair  to  us  to  say  that  we  concern  ourselves  so  little 
with  the  schools  largely  because  of  the  old  Ameri- 
can tradition  of  humble-mindedness  before  the  sa- 
cred person  of  the  School-Teacher.  Who  are  we, 
to  presume  to  lend  our  dubiously  helpful  hand  to 
enterprises  beyond  our  comprehension;  as  though 
we  should  presume  to  help  the  dentist  to  fill  a  tooth ! 
I  reiterate  that  we  will  do  well  to  keep  to  this 
attitude  of  mind  as  far  as  regards  formal  school 
studies.  What  is  to  be  remembered  is  that  we  are 
now  asking  the  schools  not  only  to  do  our  teaching 
for  us,  but  to  do  some  of  our  mothering  and  father- 
ing, and  it  is  perhaps  not  presumptious  to  think  that 
mothers  and  fathers  can  be  of  some  assistance  in  this 
later  enterprise.  But  how?  We  look  up  at  the 
great  building,  often  the  largest  and  most  impres- 
sive in  our  town;  we  see  our  sons  and  daughters 
engulfed  in  the  endless  lines  of  marching  children; 
we  step  in  and  are  abashed  by  the  great  corridors, 
the  succession  of  doors,  all  as  like  as  the  doors  in 
a  penitentiary,  the  marshaling  of  platoons  and  regi- 
ments of  pupils,  by  the  "offices,"  the  formidable 
sound  of  the  cogs  of  the  great  machine,  all  fitting 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        185 

into  one  another  and  grinding  irresistibly  forward. 
What  possible  impression  can  be  made  on  it  from 
the  outside  by  a  mere  parent?  Who  of  us  under 
such  conditions  has  not  undergone  this  experience 
of  faintness  of  heart? 

Let  such  a  parent  betake  himself  away  from  these 
too  visible  evidences  of  complication  and  elabo- 
rate mechanism  into  some  quiet  spot  where  he  can 
again  feel  himself  an  individual  and  not  an  uncon- 
sidered  ant  in  an  ant-hill,  and  take  counsed  with  him 
own  heart.  First  of  all  let  him  bring  to  mind  the 
well-known  fact  that  half  the  race  is  won  for  the 
man  who  sees  the  goal  clear  before  him,  that  he  is 
already  half-victorious  who  in  the  clangor  and  ex- 
citement of  battle  can  remember  definitely  what  he 
is  fighting  for.  Then  let  him  comfort  himself  by  re- 
membering that  what  he  wants  to  do  has  nothing  of 
extraordinary  novelty  or  originality.  He  now  real- 
izes that  he  had  thrown  too  many  of  the  duties  of 
his  parenthood  upon  the  teacher,  and  he  proposes 
to  take  them  back  and  do  more  of  his  share  himself. 
What  he  wishes  to  do  is  to  bring  into  the  school 
existence  of  children  some  of  the  conditions  tradi- 
tionally belonging  to  the  home,  notably  those  which 
tend  to  develop  initiative  and  spontaneous  activity; 
and  to  suppress  conditions  traditionally  belonging 
to  the  school  which  lead  to  passivity  and  to  a  sub- 
missive acceptance  of  conditions  as  they  are.  Or 


186  SELF-RELIANCE 

to  put  it  more  briefly,  he  wants  to  make  the  chil- 
dren capable  of  "doing  for  themselves"  by  giving 
them  the  chance  to  "do  for  themselves."  And, 
quickly,  lest  the  recollection  of  the  great  brick  and 
glass  structure  dwarf  his  courage,  let  him  remember 
that  he  is  not  at  all  dreaming  of  trying  totally  to 
reconstruct  the  school  system.  He  could  not  if  he 
wanted  to,  and  it  is  fortunate  he  can  not.  For  total 
reconstruction  is  seldom  wise.  If  people  have  slept 
all  their  lives  with  windows  and  doors  tightly  closed, 
the  shock  is  too  great  if  suddenly  you  force  them  to 
roll  up  in  a  blanket  and  sleep  under  the  stars.  No, 
you  begin  by  opening  one  window  a  little  way,  then 
another,  and  then  the  door ;  and  as  they  see  that  they 
are  not  killed,  but  quite  the  contrary,  you  eliminate 
the  bad  element  of  nervous  apprehension  on  their 
part  when  you  finally  transfer  them  to  a  sleeping- 
porch.  And  likewise  in  the  schools.  We  need  not 
hope,  or  even  wish,  to  turn  the  system  away  from  its 
dusty  paved  streets  into  grassy  and  breezy  meadows 
of  natural  homelike  conditions  all  at  once.  It  must 
come  little  by  little;  and  for  opening  up  a  window 
here,  and  pulling  up  a  shade  there,  an  "amateur" 
like  a  parent  is  as  good  as  a  professional  specialist 
and  far  less  irritating  to  the  body-politic  of  the 
school,  which  is  a  proverbially  suspicious  organism. 
Let  us  begin  with  the  unexciting,  eminently  unsen- 
sational  proposition  that  as  the  children  go  away 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        187 

from  us  into  schools  we  may  be  permitted  to  go  into 
the  schools  after  them.  After  all,  we  can  scarcely 
be  out  of  place  in  the  spot  which  is  for  much  of  the 
day  a  home  for  our  children.  And  let  us  see  which 
is  the  most  unobtrusive  window  for  us  to  open,  once 
we  are  there. 

But  all  this  does  not  start  an  imaginary  parent 
along  any  practical  path,  does  not  give  him  even  the 
end  of  a  definite  clue.  Well,  let  him — no,  not  "him," 
for  it  will  be  almost  certainly  a  mother  who  is  thus 
taking  counsel  with  herself — let  us  say,  let  her  begin 
almost  anywhere.  What  she  wants  to  do  since  the 
children  are  out  of  the  home  so  much,  is  to  bring 
more  of  the  home  into  the  school.  Let  her  select 
almost  at  random  any  element  in  home  life.  Ten 
to  one,  meal-time  will  rise  to  her  mind,  for  much 
of  the  "home  spirit"  centers  about  the  preparation 
and  eating  of  meals.  What  can  she  do  to  help 
change  the  solitary  munching  out  of  pasteboard 
boxes  of  ready-made  food  into  a  function  that  shall 
have  some  home  atmosphere  wherein  the  children 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  the  preparation  of  the 
family  food? 

Let  her  not  be  deceived  by  appearances  here; 
let  her  not  turn  away  even  if  there  is  already  a 
lunch-room  run  by  a  caterer  as  a  business  venture. 
It  is  not  only  warm  food  eaten  at  tables  which  she 
wants,  it  is  an  indefinable  moral  atmosphere  of  per- 


188  SELF-RELIANCE 

sonality  which  she  and  her  kind  can  bring  into  the 
school  and  which  is  beyond  the  most  competent  res- 
taurant-keeper to  achieve,  which  is  even  impossible 
for  teachers  to  achieve,  which  is  really  a  mother's 
job.  But  let  us  for  purposes  of  illustration  suppose 
that  the  school  she  contemplates  is  still  in  the  lunch- 
box,  pickle-and-pie-eating  stage  of  development. 
There  are  plenty  of  those  left,  as  everybody  knows. 
The  great  American  institution  known  as  the 
Woman's  Club  is  perhaps  the  best  tool  at  hand  to 
begin  with;  and  let  us  thank  the  kind  Providence 
which  has  shaped  it  for  our  use.  Let  us  suppose  a 
Woman's  Club  deciding  to  forego  the  study  of 
"Italian  Renaissance  Influence  on  English  Sonnets," 
or  even  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  and  voting 
to  give  its  activities  for  a  year  to  the  public  schools 
in  its  neighborhood.  After  conferring  together  they 
make  public  the  statement  that  they  understand  per- 
fectly that  it  is  too  much  to  expect  an  overburdened 
teacher  to  add  cooking  to  her  cares,  and  it  is  perhaps 
too  much  to  expect  the  school  taxes  to  be  swelled 
beyond  their  present  always  burdensome  size.  And 
yet  there  is  Gary,  pointing  the  way  to  improvements 
possible ;  there  is  the  Park  School  with  its  wonder- 
ful lunch-room.  There  are  hundreds  of  other 
schools  struggling  more  or  less  successfully  to  intro- 
duce this  new  feature  which  has  proved  so  desirable 
under  a  dozen  aspects.  What  is  wanted  is  to  make 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        189 

the  schools  more  home-like.  Why  can  not  the  home- 
makers  help  in  this  ?  Why  can  not  the  good  house- 
keepers of  the  neighborhood  help  out  until  the 
matter  can  be  arranged  formally  by  the  school 
authorities?  Mrs.  Robinson  who  lives  two  blocks 
from  the  schoolhouse,  has  planned  her  Mondays 
so  that  she  can  give  two  hours  at  noon  to  the  older 
girls  of  the  school.  By  relays,  ten  or  more  in  a 
group,  they  can  be  excused  from  their  school  work 
at  a  quarter  past  eleven,  or  at  any  necessary  hour. 
They  are  henceforth  Mrs.  Robinson's  girls,  always 
the  same  group  on  Mondays,  the  only  day  when  they 
and  she  take  command  of  the  lunch  proposition. 
They  find  Mrs.  Robinson  waiting  for  them  with  a 
carefully  thought-out  menu  for  the  lunch.  Di- 
vided again  into  groups  of  four  or  more,  they  pre- 
pare the  food,  macaroni  in  tomato  sauce,  or  the 
baked  potatoes  and  bread-and-butter  pudding,  or 
the  custard,  and  bean  soup ;  set  the  tables  or  arrange 
the  cafeteria;  and  at  twelve  when  the  school  is  dis- 
missed, they  sell  to  their  classmates  for  five  or  six 
or  nine  or  eleven  cents  a  nourishing  savory  lunch. 
If  Mrs.  Robinson's  young  lady  daughters,  languish- 
ing at  home  in  boredom  and  wondering  if  they 
mightn't  perhaps  go  in  for  settlement  work  or  rais- 
ing Belgian  hares,  would  come  over  to  the  school  on 
Mondays  from  twelve  to  one  to  move  unobtrusively 
about  the  lunch-room,  the  table-manners  of  the  chil- 


190  SELF-RELIANCE 

dren  would  be  improved  and  the  young  ladies'  bore- 
dom sensibly  diminished. 

After  her  two  hours  of  strenuous  but  highly  in- 
teresting instruction  were  over,  Mrs.  Robinson  could 
pin  on  her  hat  and  go  home,  feeling  that  she  is  more 
an  integral  part  of  the  life  of  the  community  than 
ever  before.  On  Tuesday  her  neighbor,  Mrs.  Hum- 
phreys, another  member  of  the  Woman's  Club, 
could  take  her  place  with  another  group  of  girls, 
and,  having  no  grown-up  daughters  to  help  out  at 
the  noon-hour,  could  call  on  the  childless  Mrs. 
Packard  to  drop  in  to  have  an  eye  on  how  napkins 
are  used,  and  to  see  that  the  inevitable  and  very 
desirable  "good  time"  did  not  grow  too  noisy. 

The  very  informality  of  all  this,  the  "unprofes- 
sional" character  of  it  is  its  chief  value.  Let  those 
comfortable  homekeepers,  cooperating  thus  in  their 
amateur  way,  beware  lest  the  essence  of  their  plan 
be  destroyed  by  some  energetic,  too-competent  one 
among  them,  or  a  "professional"  from  outside  who, 
in  order  to  save  effort,  to  be  more  efficient,  offers 
to  "do  the  whole  thing  up  at  one  time,"  gather  all 
the  girls  together  once  a  week  and  give  them  a 
demonstration  lecture  in  a  big  hall.  At  the  first 
suggestion  of  such  a  substitution  of  "mass  activ- 
ity" for  indiyidual  contact  let  every  woman  rise 
up  to  defend  her  conviction.  Those  women  are 
not  giving  themselves  all  that  trouble  merely  to 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        191 

teach  the  girls  cooking.  That  might  perhaps  be 
better  taught  in  a  laboratory.  They  are  not  merely 
trying  to  provide  a  warm  and  digestible  lunch 
for  the  school  children,  something  which  a  caterer 
might  manage  more  efficiently.  What  they  are 
up  to  is  an  attempt  to  bring  the  human  element 
into  the  schools,  to  banish  for  an  hour  or  so  the 
impersonal  abstract,  to  give  the  children  a  share  in 
the  life  of  their  group  and  to  make  them  feel, 
warmly  and  emotionally  feel  the  importance  of 
their  doing  that  share.  These  club  women  are  try- 
ing hard  to  protect  the  children  against  the  dead- 
ening effect  of  "mass"  life,  which  dulls  and  stupe- 
fies the  nascent  individual  and  initiatory  faculties. 
They  are  trying  to  break  up  the  great  formidable, 
unhuman  bulk  of  the  school  population  into  small 
manageable  groups  with  some  natural  reason  for 
acting  together;  they  are  trying  to  reintroduce  into 
school  life  some  of  the  elements  of  spontaneous 
action  and  individual  initiative  which  were  engen- 
dered in  the  old  family  feeling  of  responsibility  for 
the  conduct  of  the  group  life. 

In  any  one  of  the  numberless  American  villages, 
towns  and  cities  which  are  still  small  enough  for 
people  to  "know  one  another"  as  the  pregnant  phrase 
runs,  this  plan  could  be  carried  out  by  any  woman's 
club,  with  a  minimum  of  formal  organization  com- 
mittees, secretaries  and  the  like.  It  can  be  kept 


192,  SELF-RELIANCE 

what  it  is  in  reality,  an  affair  of  neighborliness,  of 
wholesome  and  natural  cooperation  between  families 
living  near  one  another. 

I  am  well  aware  that  before  now  any  reader  who 
is  familiar  with  the  barren  interior  of  an  American 
school  building  is  crying  out  upon  me:  "But  where, 
pray,  in  that  swept  and  garnished  sterility  could 
one  put  all  the  comfortable  and  shining  parapher- 
nalia for  the  gracious  act  of  preparing  food?  And 
even  if  there  were  a  place,  where  would  the  pots 
and  pans,  and  stoves  and  dishes  come  from?"  These 
questions  are  not  so  difficult  to  answer  as  they 
sound,  if  one  has  but  the  courage  of  his  convictions. 
Since  the  less  essential  should  always  give  way  to 
the  greater,  it  might  be  well  worth  while  if  there 
is  absolutely  no  vacant  floor  space  possible  in  attic, 
basement,  or  store-room,  to  sacrifice  the  echoing 
vacancy  of  a  hall  or  entrance  way.  What  if  it  does 
look  cluttered?  It  is  a  good  clutter,  that  means 
real  life  brought  into  the  school.  And  nowadays, 
that  kitchenette  furnishing  has  had  so  much  inge- 
nuity lavished  upon  it,  the  compact  modern  ap- 
paratus for  actual  cooking  can  be  put  into  an 
incredibly  small  place.  Oil  and  gas  stoves  take  up 
little  room;  light  folding  tables  and  chairs  can  be 
used  and  can  be  set  up  against. the  wall  at  the  end  of 
the  meal.  One  chest  of  deep  drawers  and  shelves 
against  an  end  wall  will  hold  all  the  paper  napkins, 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        193 

cutlery  and  dishes  needed.  And  the  spectacle  of 
this  comfortable  outfit,  brightening  with  its  homely 
cheer  a  school  corridor,  would  make  the  children's 
guardian  angels  sing  for  joy! 

The  question  of  where  to  put  the  apparatus  hav- 
ing been  disposed  of,  let  us  turn  to  the  other  poser, 
how  to  secure  it.  There  is  much  to  be  said  on  this 
score,  and  most  of  it  is  cheerful.  There  are  few 
towns  of  moderate  size  where  the  merchants  if  rea- 
sonably approached  will  not  be  found  surprisingly 
ready  to  help.  Our  splendid  national  tradition  of 
interest  and  pride  in  the  schools  is  an  almost  in- 
exhaustible bank  on  which  to  draw.  If  the  owner  of 
the  stove-store  of  a  town  has  the  advantages  of  the 
plan  explained  to  him  and  in  addition  is  made  to 
see  the  possibilities  for  some  legitimate  advertising, 
the  chances  are  large  that  he  will  agree  to  furnish 
one  or  more  oil  stoves.  If  the  town  has  gas,  the 
gas  company  will  do  the  same.  In  some  remote 
rural  districts,  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  al- 
ready inaugurated  the  policy  of  furnishing  an  oil 
stove  to  any  school  that  will  organize  cooking 
classes.  Dishes  for  cooking  can  be  procured  in  the 
same  way  and  supplemented  by  an  occasional  gift 
from  a  private  kitchen.  The  folding  tables  will 
probably  have  to  be  bought,  but  almost  certainly 
at  wholesale  rates  if  their  purpose  is  explained.  And 
there  could  be  no  more  wholesome  experience  for  the 


194  SELF-RELIANCE 

girls  of  the  schools  than  to  take  counsel  with  their 
parents  and  elders  concerning  the  organizing  and 
furnishing  of  the  school  kitchen.  It  would  be  good 
for  their  arithmetic,  for  their  future  homes,  for 
their  very  souls,  to  find  themselves  although  still 
in  the  school  building,  occupied  in  an  undertaking 
which  is  really  essential  to  life.  And  once  it  is 
established,  their  arithmetic,  their  future  homes 
and  their  souls  would  continue  to  profit  by  the  exer- 
cise of  calculating  the  food  needed,  and  the  cost 
of  it,  of  marketing  for  it,  and  preparing  it  and 
serving  it,  and  clearing  up  after  a  meal.  To  have 
once  a  week  such  contact  with  reality  and  some  of 
its  laws,  would  be  as  tonic  and  invigorating  an  ex- 
perience for  a  little  girl,  as  assuming  the  care  of 
her  own  home  is  for  the  young  woman.  And  the 
little  girl  would  have  the  immense  advantage  of 
taking  under  expert  guidance  that  momentous  first 
step  away  from  theoretical  studies  into  actual  life. 
If  each  group  of  girls  undertakes  this  one  day  a 
week,  or  even  (if  the  number  is  very  great)  one  day 
a  fortnight,  the  accumulation  of  knowledge  and  ex- 
perience at  the  end  of  a  school  year  will  be  incalcu- 
lable. It  is  even  possible  that  the  club  women  who 
guide  them  may  themselves  find  the  experience  stim- 
ulating and  suggestive.  It  is  certain  that  they  will 
be  brought  into  closer  relations  with  a  group  of 
their  young  fellow-citizens;  a  relation  that  will  be 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        195 

thought-provoking  for  the  older  women  and  richly 
influential  in  the  girls'  lives. 

If  some  factor  in  the  organization  of  the  school 
positively  forbids  such  activity  as  that  outlined 
above,  our  club  women  can  always  fall  back  on  the 
"Crete  idea"  as  educators  call  it,  after  the  town  in 
Nebraska  where  energetic  and  public-spirited  ma- 
trons originated  it.  There  the  group  of  girls,  always 
kept  small  and  manageable  so  that  the  personal 
element  is  emphasized,  is  taken  once  a  week  into  the 
home  of  their  adoptive  mother-teacher  and  there 
have  the  experience  of  well-regulated  activity  in 
some  home  industry.  They  may  cook  their  own 
supper  and  that  of  the  family  of  their  hostess,  or  in 
season  they  may  put  up  preserves  and  jelly  to  pre- 
sent at  cost  to  those  in  charge  of  the  school-lunch. 
Working  together  like  sisters  under  their  mother's 
eye,  they  may  thoroughly  clean  and  set  in  order  a 
room,  and  learn  to  their  astonishment  how  varied 
and  interesting  are  the  processes  involved. 

For  the  purposes  of  illustration  we  have  followed 
in  detail  what  might  happen  if  an  imaginary  mother 
had  chanced  to  think  of  meal-time  as  a  potent  ele- 
ment in  home  life.  But  this  has  been  developed 
so  elaborately  merely  as  an  example.  Suppose  she 
is  the  kind  of  woman  who  sews  with  pleasure  and 
hates  cooking.  She  might  then  very  naturally, 
in  running  over  home  scenes,  no  longer  existing  in 


196  SELF-RELIANCE 

the  home,  not  yet  introduced  into  the  schools,  have 
thought  of  the  pleasant  hours  of  talk  in  a  well-fur- 
nished sewing-room,  where  mothers  and  daughters 
are  drawn  together  by  effort-in-common  as  nothing 
else  can  draw  them.  Let  her  remember  at  once  as 
did  the  cooking-club  woman  that  her  purpose  is  not 
merely  to  teach  the  girls  to  sew,  but  to  bring  into 
their  school  life  by  means  of  sewing,  some  of  the 
old  home  qualities  of  individual  responsibility  and 
initiative,  and  let  her  lay  her  plans  and  organize  her 
campaign  accordingly.  It  would  be  wearisome,  of 
course,  to  continue  outlining  in  detail  the  various 
approaches  to  the  problem.  Ingenious  American 
women  can  be  trusted  to  fit  the  means  to  the  end, 
once  their  attention  is  called  to  the  need  for  action. 
In  the  case  of  the  sewing  enthusiast  she  might,  if 
the  school  is  rather  primitive  and  no  sewing  is 
taught  in  it,  give  actual  instruction,  not  so  much  in 
the  construction  of  garments  which  in  these  ready- 
made  days  are  so  easily  bought,  but  in  the  up-keep 
of  a  woman's  costume,  the  endless  little  matters 
which  most  girls  learn  to  do  painfully  and  in  the 
most  back-handed  manner.  She  should  show  them 
how  to  mend,  and  darn,  and  sew  on  buttons,  and 
baste  in  fine  neck-wear,  and  reinforce,  and  forestall 
breaks  and  tears. 

Of  if  sewing  is  already  formally  taught  in  the 
school,  she  can  gather  her  group  of  girls  around  her 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        197 

once  a  week  in  some  enterprise  connected  with 
school  life.  They  can  prepare  the  linen  necessary 
for  the  school  lunch-room,  or  they  can  make  the 
costumes  for  the  seventh-grade  dramatics,  or  they 
can  make  a  set  of  stenciled  curtains  for  the  school- 
room windows.  (If  they  are  so  arranged  as  not  to 
shut  out  light,  there  is,  I  dare  say,  no  law  which 
forbids  to  schoolrooms  the  softening  effect  of  pretty 
washable  curtains,  an  effect  we  none  of  us  would 
forego  in  our  homes. ) 

Now,  let  us  leave  to  our  own  devices  the  various 
other  kinds  of  club  women,  the  woman  who  neither 
sews  nor  cooks  with  pleasure,  but  delights  in  shows 
and  pageants  and  entertainments;  the  woman  who 
loves  outdoors;  th,e  woman  who  loves  babies;  the 
woman  who  has  a  genius  for  social  settlement  work, 
and  all  the  rest.  They  can  be  trusted  to  invent  ways 
to  use  their  own  special  capacities  as  keys  to  unlock 
for  groups  of  school-girls  the  door  to  the  domain 
of  individual  effort  and  responsibility.  Let  us  turn 
now  from  them  to  their  husbands  and  older  sons 
who,  we  may  suppose  by  this  time,  aroused  by  all 
this  talk  of  helping  girls  to  self-reliance,  have  looked 
up  over  their  newspapers  of  an  evening  and  inquired, 
"But  what  about  the  boys?" 

Well,  how  about  the  boys?  Their  case  is  differ- 
ent from  that  of  their  sisters.  No  two  girls  are 
going  to  have  identical  futures,  but  they  will  almost 


198  SELF-RELIANCE 

all  be  somewhat  concerned  with  certain  basic  home- 
making  processes,  such  as  cooking  and  sewing ;  and 
these  they  may  well  begin  to  practise  in  childhood. 
But  the  boys  will  enter  many  diverse  occupations 
with  hardly  anything  in  common  except  that  each 
has  for  its  purpose  the  making  of  money  and  for 
their  varied  specialized  futures  no  handcraft  which 
they  can  master  at  school  promises  to  have  practical 
value.  But  boys,  as  well  as  girls,  have  to  be  pre- 
pared for  a  world  where  desirable  objects  are  earned 
by  work,  where  obligations  have  to  be  met,  where 
effort  in  common  is  the  prerequisite  of  success. 
Therefore  when  the  fathers  and  older  brothers  get 
together  to  try  to  devise  some  way  of  making  the 
boys'  school  life  more  of  a  preparation  for  their  ma- 
ture life,  their  task  must  be  to  find  some  method 
of  teaching  these  fundamental  facts  of  life,  in  a 
manner  attractive  enough  to  overcome  the  boys'  nat- 
ural dislike  for  application  and  restraint. 

To  make  a  beginning  they  will  do  well  to  connect 
their  instruction  with  some  activity  in  which  the 
boys  feel  a  keen  and  general  interest,  and  for  this 
purpose  nothing  is  more  available  than  young 
America's  craze  for  athletics.  The  preliminary  steps 
need  not  be  complicated.  Perhaps  the  idea  of  "doing 
something  for  the  boys"  originates  at  the  men's 
social  club,  or  is  talked  over  on  the  train  which 
carries  many  of  the  fathers  to  and  from  busi- 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        199 

ness,  or  perhaps  the  idea  appeals  to  only  one  man : 
in  any  case  the  work  is  best  left  to  a  committee  of 
one,  consisting  of  the  man  who  is  most  able  and 
willing  to  give  the  necessary  time.  Probably  there 
will  be  few  enough  candidates  for  such  a  position, 
but  where  a  choice  is  possible  the  qualities  govern- 
ing it  should  be:  sympathy  and  patience  with  boys, 
and  the  ability  to  get  along  with  them,  to  rouse  their 
interest,  to  gain  their  respect  and  affection.  Some- 
times a  father  has  these  qualities,  more  often  the 
work  can  be  better  done  by  a  younger  man, — per- 
haps a  teacher  in  the  high  school,  an  older  brother, 
an  ex-pupil  of  the  school,  all  the  better  if  he  had 
made  a  name  for  himself  in  athletics.  At  all  events 
whoever  is  most  available  is  appointed  organizer  for 
the  boys'  activities,  while  the  others  interested  in 
the  movement  support  him  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  background. 

The  organizer  first  gets  the  sanction  of  the  school 
authorities  for  his  project,  then  suggests  to  a  few  of 
the  older  boys  the  formation  of  an  athletic  organ- 
ization, or  if  there  is  already  such  an  organization, 
the  remodeling  it  along  lines  of  greater  efficiency. 
There  is  little  chance  of  their  being  any  hitch  here ; 
the  project  is  sure  to  be  greeted  with  enthusiasm. 
The  principal  of  the  school  is  asked  to  announce  a 
mass  meeting,  and  assign  a  room  for  it.  At  this 
meeting  the  organizer  explains  his  plan  in  terms  the 


200  SELF-RELIANCE 

boys  can  understand.  Perhaps  he  has  a  constitution 
already  prepared,  perhaps  he  leaves  that  till  later. 
In  any  case  he  should  have  no  difficulty  in  persuad- 
ing the  boys  to  acclaim  all  essential  features: 

Meetings  are  to  be  conducted  according  to  parlia- 
mentary law.  This  is  for  two  reasons:  first,  be- 
cause parliamentary  law  almost  always  interests 
the  boys ;  second,  because  an  early  familiarity  with 
it,  even  the  slightest  familiarity,  will  save  them 
from  awkwardness  when  they  grow  older  and  join 
larger  organizations  where  it  is  almost  universally 
used. 

The  meetings  are  to  be  held  every  week,  or  every 
two  weeks,  as  seems  desirable.  They  should  not 
be  too  infrequent  or  interest  will  lag.  The  officers 
are  a  President,  who  presides  at  meetings  and 
appoints  minor  committees;  a  Secretary,  who 
keeps  the  minutes  of  meetings,  posts  notices  of 
meetings,  writes  letters;  a  Treasurer,  who  re- 
ceives dues  (which  are  small  enough  to  bar  no 
pupil),  gives  and  takes  receipts  for  all  money 
which  passes  through  his  hands  (a  pad  with  blank 
receipt  forms  can  be  had  for  five  or  ten  cents 
at  a  stationery  store),  keeps  books  (the  organizer 
suggests  and  explains  a  simple  system)  and  makes 
reports  at  stated  meetings. 

Probably  there  also  should  be  one  or  two  Care- 
takers of  club  property,  whose  duty  it  is  to  see  that 
bats,  balls  and  whatever  else  is  owned  in  common, 
is  put  away  after  each  playtime. 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        201 

Ail  these  officers  are  elected  by  the  club.  There 
should  be  perhaps  four  elections  every  school  year, 
and  no  boy  should  be  eligible  for  any  office  for  two 
consecutive  terms  (so  that  as  many  boys  as  possible 
can  have  the  experience  of  responsibility. 

In  addition  to  these  regular  officers,  various  enter- 
prises as  they  are  undertaken  are  referred  to  com- 
mittees specially  appointed  or  elected  for  the  busi- 
ness in  hand. 

There  should  be  one  "honorary  member/'  an  adult 
whose  duty  it  is  to  be  present  at  meetings  whenever 
possible,  to  be  always  ready  to  advise  any  member 
of  the  club,  and  generally  to  suggest  desirable  ways 
and  means.  This  honorary  member  will  at  first 
naturally  be  the  organizer  of  the  club.  Later  it 
would  promote  good  feeling  and  cooperation  if 
other  men  can  be  found  to  take  their  turn  at  this 
important  work. 

If  nothing  more  is  accomplished  than  the  organ- 
ization of  such  a  club,  the  boys  will  gain  a  good 
deal  from  the  habit  of  managing  common  interests 
in  common,  from  the  familiarity  with  the  principles 
of  majority  rule  and  delegated  authority  so  usual  in 
the  management  of  the  adult  world.  But  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  foundation  of  such  a  club  will  be 
only  the  first  step,  that  from  it  will  follow  naturally 
other  activities  even  more  valuable  in  the  formation 
of  character. 


202  SELF-RELIANCE 

Whether  the  club  accomplishes  much  or  little  will 
depend  chiefly  on  the  ability  of  the  honorary  mem- 
ber to  arouse  the  boys'  interest,  and  to  devise  means 
for  employing  it  profitably.  He  must  never  forget 
that  though  he  may  regard  it  as  an  educational 
expedient,  from  the  boys'  point  of  view  the  club 
exists  to  promote  athletics;  therefore,  he  should  play 
fair,  do  his  best  to  help  all  athletic  projects  and 
trust  to  the  education  coming  in  as  a  by-product. 

Much  can  be  done  to  give  the  boys'  athletics  a 
better  tone  than  they  would  have  undirected.  Of 
course  the  boys'  chief  interest  will  be  in  putting  into 
the  field  a  football  and  a  baseball  team  to  compete 
with  the  teams  of  other  schools.  The  honorary 
member  may  question  the  wisdom  of  this,  but  such 
a  proceeding  is  so  taken  for  granted  nowadays  that 
he  can  not  oppose  it  without  losing  much  of  his  hold 
on  the  boys.  The  best  he  can  do  negatively  is  to  use 
his  influence  to  discourage  the  boys  from  undertak- 
ing games  with  teams  outside  their  class,  and  to  keep 
off  the  team  any  boy  especially  likely  to  be  injured. 
Positively,  if  the  school  is  a  fair-sized  one,  he  can  do 
something  to  counteract  the  usual  result  of  inter- 
school  athletics — eleven  boys  doing  all  the  playing 
while  fifty  others  wave  flags  and  cheer — by  organ- 
izing several  junior  teams  each  with  a  schedule  of 
its  own.  He  can  do  still  more  by  encouraging  the 
playing  of  games  in  which  many  can  participate. 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        203 

Tennis  and  handball  are  excellent  fun;  even  on  a 
limited  playground  many  games  can  go  on  at  the 
same  time,  and  by  taking  turns  at  the  courts  a  great 
many  boys  can  get  a  great  deal  of  exercise  in  an 
afternoon.  If  the  boys  want  more  formal  compe- 
tition, the  honorary  member  can  suggest  a  tourna- 
ment which  includes  every  player  in  the  school.  The 
two  best  players  are  appointed  captains  and  each  in 
turn  chooses  a  boy  till  all  are  chosen  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  The  tournament  is  started  by  the  boys 
chosen  last  on  each  side  (naturally  the  poorest  play- 
ers) playing  each  other.  Then  the  next-to-the-last 
boys  play,  and  so  on,  the  quality  of  the  game  in- 
creasing until  the  meeting  of  the  two  captains  forms 
the  climax.  The  side  winning  most  matches  wins 
the  tournament. 

The  same  idea  may  be  used  to  give  an  interest  to 
wrestling,  which,  by  the  way,  should  be  more  en- 
couraged in  school  athletics;  and  a  relay  race  par- 
ticipated in  by  the  whole  school  is  a  stirring  affair. 
The  course  may  be  around  a  running  track,  if  the 
school  has  one,  or  around  a  course  marked  on  the 
playground,  or  it  may  be  around  a  city  block  if  that 
is  not  too  long  for  the  little  ones.  Sides  are  chosen 
as  for  the  tennis  tournament,  and  the  two  slowest 
runners  begin.  Immediately  the  two  runners  next 
on  the  list  take  their  places  at  the  starting  point,  but 
neither  can  start  till  the  runner  of  his  side  completes 


204  SELF-RELIANCE 

the  circuit  and  touches  his  hand.  As  soon  as  the 
fresh  runner  is  off,  another  of  his  side  jumps  to  the 
starting  point,  and  so  on  till  all  the  runners  of  one 
side  have  been  around  the  circuit.  When  a  number 
of  boys  compete,  the  fortunes  of  the  race  will  swing 
back  and  forth  from  one  side  to  the  other  and  the 
resulting  excitement  and  hilarity  are  intense. 

So  far  suggestions  have  been  made  for  persuad- 
ing the  boys  to  manage  their  affairs  in  common,  to 
play  instead  of  watching  a  team  play;  but  (from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  honorary  member)  even 
more  important  work  can  be  done  in  helping  them 
improve  their  playground.  At  the  worst  they  may 
have  no  playground  at  all,  and  if  their  school  hap- 
pens to  be  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  very  large  city, 
little  can  be  done  to  provide  them  with  one  for  their 
exclusive  use.  But  most  large  cities  either  provide 
public  playgrounds  open  to  all  boys  or  set  aside 
parts  of  certain  parks  for  games.  The  honorary 
member  should  himself  investigate  these  possibili- 
ties, report  them  to  the  club,  and  advise  the  com- 
mittee of  boys  appointed  as  to  the  proper  form  in 
which  to  apply  for  the  desired  privilege.  As  much 
as  possible,  of  course,  he  should  let  the  boys  do  the 
necessary  talking  and  writing,  coming  forward  him- 
self only  if  the  city  authorities  require  a  guarantee 
by  some  older  men  for  the  boys'  character.  Simi- 
larly perhaps  admission  can  be  gained  during  cer- 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        205 

tain  uncrowded  hours  to  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  gymnasium, 
or,  perhaps,  to  the  gymnasium  of  another  school. 
But  when  all  is  said,  probably  the  best  thing  boys 
living  in  a  large  city  can  do,  is  to  plan  to  get  out  of 
it  as  often  as  possible.  The  more  Saturdays  that  can 
be  occupied  by  excursions  (of  as  many  boys  as  can 
be  persuaded  to  go)  into  the  country,  the  better  it 
will  be  for  the  boys'  physical  and  moral  health ;  and 
the  more  fathers  and  uncles  who  will  volunteer  to 
take  their  turn  at  accompanying  such  expeditions, 
the  better  for  the  relations  between  the  generations. 
Only  a  small  proportion  of  American  boys,  how- 
ever, go  to  schools  situated  more  than  a  moderate 
walking  distance  from  the  outskirts  of  town,  and 
for  the  great  majority,  the  use  of  some  vacant 
ground  can  be  secured  without  charge  or  for  so 
small  a  price  that  the  school  directors  or  a  com- 
mittee of  fathers  will  hardly  confess  themselves  un- 
willing to  pay  it.  It  is  well  enough  that  the  play- 
ground should  be  secured  by  those  with  more  finan- 
cial resources  than  the  boys  can  command,  but  it 
would  be  a  pity  if  the  elders  in  a  burst  of  generosity 
should  equip  it  outright.  Any  money  they  may  be 
willing  to  contribute  should  be  spent  for  tools  and 
raw  materials,  leaving  to  the  boys  the  tonic  expe- 
rience of  working  for  what  they  want.  The  hon- 
orary member  should  explain  the  situation  to  the 
club:  "We  have  now  a  place  to  play,  but  it  would 


206  SELF-RELIANCE 

be  much  more  suited  to  our  games  if  we  could  grade 
off  the  high  places  and  fill  in  the  lower  ones.  Such 
and  such  men  have  promised  to  lend  wheelbarrows, 
shovels,  picks  (or  have  promised  to  buy  them  for 
us).  Now  we  all  ought  to  do  our  part  of  this  work, 
and  as  we  have  many  more  hands  than  tools,  I  sug- 
gest that  we  divide  up  into  squads  and  work  at  this 
job  in  turn."  In  a  club  of  fifty  boys,  ten  gang  lead- 
ers should  be  appointed  or  elected,  and  they  should 
choose  in  turn  one  helper  until  ten  gangs  of  five 
boys  each  are  made  up.  Then  a  schedule  is  drawn 
up  showing  at  what  time  during  the  day  each  squad 
has  the  right  to  the  tools.  If  one  wheelbarrow,  three 
shovels,  and  a  couple  of  picks  are  available,  one 
squad  can  work;  if  more  tools  are  at  hand,  two  or 
more  squads  can  work  at  the  same  time.  First  the 
ground  is  loosened,  a  moderate  load  is  shoveled  into 
the  barrow,  then  the  biggest  boy  takes  the  handles 
and  two  other  boys  take  hold  of  the  sides  to  keep 
the  barrow  from  tipping ;  they  push  it  to  a  low  spot 
and  dump  it  there,  while  the  other  two  boys  of  the 
squad  are  loosening  ground  for  the  next  load.  After 
ten  or  fifteen  minutes'  activity  the  boys  stop  to  rest 
or  play,  and  the  work  is  carried  on  by  the  squad 
next  on  the  time  schedule.  Stones  too  large  to  be 
loaded  (even  if  they  are  fairly  large  boulders)  can 
be  disposed  of  by  digging  a  hole  near  them,  and 
then  after  every  one  is  out  of  the  hole,  crumbling 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        207 

the  earth  between  the  stone  and  the  hole  away  with 
a  shovel  till  the  stone  rolls  over  of  its  own  weight 
and  falls  in.  Work  can  be  carried  on  before  school, 
at  recess,  in  the  afternoon ;  or  even  better,  it  can  be 
put  off  till  vacation,  and  help  give  the  boys  some 
steady  useful  occupation  in  that  critical  period, 
usually  so  devoted  to  listlessness  or  mischief.  With 
such  a  system  of  squads  working  only  for  short 
periods  even  fairly  little  boys  can  move  a  perfect 
mountain  of  earth,  and  enjoy  every  minute  of  the 
work. 

With  the  field  graded,  new  projects  will  be  sug- 
gested and  undertaken.  Perhaps  drain  tile  will  be 
laid  under  a  tennis  court;  perhaps  a  fence  for  a 
handball  court  can  be  built.  The  honorary  mem- 
ber will,  of  course,  try  to  gauge  the  boys'  enthusi- 
asm and  act  accordingly  in  backing  or  discouraging 
various  propositions.  When  the  boys  respond 
freely,  and  really  like  the  work,  more  or  less  general 
improvement  of  school  grounds  may  be  undertaken, 
walks  of  gravel  or  concrete  made,  trees  or  shrubs 
planted ;  but  it  is  always  well  not  to  count  on  much 
altruism  from  human  nature.  A  certain  amount  of 
public  work  the  boys  may  consent  to,  but  their  in- 
terest will  generally  be  centered  in  the  things  they 
themselves  value.  Just  what  and  how  many  these 
things  may  be,  will  vary  with  different  situations 
and  different  sets  of  boys.  Perhaps  they  can  throw 


208  SELF-RELIANCE 

up  a  low  dike  of  earth  around  their  field,  flood  it, 
and  let  it  freeze  for  a  skating  pond,  perhaps  they 
can  manage  a  shower  bath ;  surely  they  can  augment 
their  manual  training  (too  often  concentrated  on 
bench  work)  by  constructing  a  shed  in  which  to 
store  their  athletic  paraphernalia.  Other  activities 
will  suggest  themselves,  some  may  be  little  worth 
doing,  some  will  be  bungled;  but  the  elders  must 
be  patient:  if  the  boys  are  honestly  doing  their  best 
to  get  what  they  want  by  their  own  efforts  instead 
of  trying  to  wheedle  it  out  of  some  one  else  they 
have  gone  a  long  way  toward  mature  self-support. 

While  the  athletic  club  was  still  an  experiment, 
its  adult  backers  did  well  in  helping  out  when 
money  had  to  be  spent,  but  later  when  the  play- 
ground is  in  usable  shape  and  the  habit  of  "working 
for  what  you  want"  is  well  established,  further  con- 
tributions would  be  unwise.  Instead  of  giving  the 
boys  money  for  their  enterprises  it  is  better  to  give 
them  chances  to  earn  it,  even  if  the  second  alterna- 
tive is  much  more  bother  to  their  parents  than  the 
first.  Suppose  the  club  wants  to  buy  baseball  gloves 
for  its  team  and  has  no  money  in  its  treasury  for 
the  purpose.  The  situation  might  be  met  by  circu- 
lating a  subscription  list  among  the  fathers  and 
business  men  of  the  town.  But  a  much  better 
method  would  be  for  the  honorary  member  to 
propose  that  the  club  undertake  to  earn  the  neces- 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        209 

sary  money.  What  the  boys  can  do  depends,  of 
course,  on  the  boys  themselves,  on  their  parents,  on 
the  sort  of  community  in  which  they  live ;  but  some- 
thing can  always  be  found  if  it  is  looked  for 
patiently  enough.  In  almost  any  community,  for 
instance,  there  are  parental  shoes  to  be  blacked. 
Suppose  twenty  men  agree  to  pay  five  cents  a  day 
for  this  service,  and  will  perhaps  lend  the  necessary 
brushes:  if  the  boys  divide  up  in  groups  of  two,  and 
each  pair  has  one  or  two  houses  on  its  list  (depend- 
ing on  the  number  of  boys),  then  in  half  an  hour's 
work  after  dinner  every  night,  the  club  could  add  a 
dollar  to  its  athletic-goods  fund,  and  its  members 
could  add  a  very  wholesome  experience  with  the 
conditions  of  real  life.  In  most  towns  and  villages 
there  are  a  number  of  small  services  for  which  the 
parents  would  be  willing  to  pay  if  they  understood 
the  educational  advantage  involved :  there  are  pack- 
ages to  be  carried  to  and  from  the  express  station, 
letters  to  be  taken  to  the  post-office,  ashes  to  be  car- 
ried away,  grass  to  be  cut  in  summer,  leaves  raked 
up  in  autumn — perhaps  a  few  tradesmen  would  con- 
sent to  let  the  boys  do  part  of  their  delivery  work. 
None  of  these  things  is  required  by  any  household 
every  day;  but  every  day  two  or  three  households 
will  want  help  of  one  kind  or  another.  It  would  be 
easy  for  the  boys  to  separate  after  school  in  small 
squads  and  each  to  walk  through  one  section  of 


210  SELF-RELIANCE 

town.  At  every  house  where  they  see  a  piece  of 
red  cardboard  hanging  out  of  the  kitchen  window 
they  stop,  inquire  what  there  is  to  be  done,  do  it  (or 
if  it  should  be  a  long  job,  get  one  or  two  other 
squads  to  help  them  do  it)  and  receive  the  price 
agreed  on  beforehand  for  that  sort  of  work.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  I  speak  always  of  the  boys  moving 
in  small  squads.  That  is  because  a  single  boy  is 
usually  daunted  by  a  few  minutes  of  effort  while 
several  boys  hearten  one  another.  I  have  not  for- 
gotten the  old  proverb:  "Two  boys  are  half  a  boy, 
three  boys  are  no  boy  at  all !"  But  that  was  written 
when  it  was  assumed  that  the  boys  could  be  made  to 
work  only  by  authority  imposed  from  above;  nat- 
urally the  effect  of  combination  in  such  conditions 
would  be  to  multiply  the  spirit  of  revolt  till  it  over- 
came the  fear  of  authority.  But  this  plan  I  am  pro- 
posing for  work  (if  it  works  at  all),  because  the 
boys  understand  the  conditions  and  freely  choose 
(just  as  their  elders  do)  to  do  something  that  is  not 
enjoyable  so  that  they  may  get  in  return  for  it 
something  which  is  enjoyable.  Where  this  choice  is 
clearly  made,  three  or  four  boys  will  have  a  group 
conscience  and  group  perseverance  greater  than  that 
of  any  individual  boy. 

One  more  lesson  the  athletic  club  activities  can  be 
made  to  inculcate.     The  club  will  need  money  for 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOLS        211 

some  project — to  buy  hockey  sticks  perhaps — and 
need  it  in  a  hurry.  If  they  wait  till  they  earn  it,  the 
ice  will  be  gone.  What  can  be  done?  Well,  if  they 
have  shown  themselves  moderately  conscientious  in 
sticking  to  their  previous  enterprises,  the  honorary 
member  will  explain  to  them  something  of  the  sys- 
tem of  credit.  "If  your  fathers  wanted  to  build  a 
new  schoolhouse,"  he  would  say,  "they  would  not 
try  to  pay  for  it  all  at  once.  They  would  borrow  as 
much  as  they  needed  from  a  bank,  or  from  a  num- 
ber of  men  who  happened  to  have  money  lying  idle. 
A  little  of  this,  together  with  a  small  rental  for  the 
use  of  all  the  money,  they  would  pay  off  every  year, 
until  finally  everything  is  paid  back  and  the  school- 
house  owned  without  debt.  This  is  how  the  world's 
business  is  done.  There  is  no  danger  in  it,  if  the 
payments  are  honestly  met  and  the  repayment  com- 
pleted before  the  object  bought  wears  out.  Now 
these  hockey  sticks  will  last  perhaps  two  seasons, 
but  when  spring  comes  we  will  not  be  interested  in 
hockey  and  it  will  go  against  the  grain  to  go  on  pay- 
ing for  the  sticks.  Let  us  therefore  agree  to  pay 
back  one-third  of  what  we  borrow  at  the  end  of 
December,  another  third  at  the  end  of  January  and 
the  last  at  the  end  of  February*  Men  lend  money 
only  when  they  have  good  reason  to  believe  that 
it  will  be  paid  back.  You  have  worked  faith- 


212  SELF-RELIANCE 

fully  at  grading  the  grounds  and  you  have  worked 
to  raise  money  for  a  football;  the  men  of  this 
town  know  it  and  your  credit  is  good  with  them. 
Therefore  if  you  will  agree  to  pay  back  the  money 
in  monthly  instalments,  as  I  have  suggested,  they 
will  advance  it,  and  you  can  have  your  hockey  sticks 
in  time  for  the  first  ice.  Only  don't  vote  to  borrow 
until  you  have  talked  the  problem  all  over,  have 
agreed  that  you  want  the  sticks  enough  to  work  for 
them,  and  unless  you  are  certain  that  you  can  earn 
enough  to  pay  the  instalments.  Don't  make  a  guess 
at  it.  Figure  how  much  you  earned  during  the 
last  three  months,  see  if  you  can  reasonably  expect 
as  much  work  and  as  much  time  to  do  it  in  during 
the  next  three.  Don't  make  any  vague  cheerful 
guesses;  figure  as  closely  as  you  can.  Then  if  you 
see  your  way  clear:  all  right.  If  it  looks  doubtful: 
get  along  with  fewer  sticks  or  with  none  at  all." 
Described  in  some  such  way,  the  practise  of  bor- 
rowing (a  practise  that  is  harmful  only  when 
abused,  and  when  used  reasonably  is  a  great  stim- 
ulus toward  forethought  and  endeavor)  must  seem 
to  the  boys  a  useful  tool;  not  as  it  frequently  does 
to  young  men  who  suddenly  come  into  contact  with 
it  for  the  first  time — a  magician's  wand  by  which 
all  sorts  of  costly  and  desirable  things  can  be  had 
without  working  for  them.  This  false  view  is  ab- 


PARENTS  IN  THE  SCHOOL         213 

surd,  of  course,  but  it  is  not  uncommon.  It  causes  a 
great  deal  of  heart-burning,  of  disgrace  and  family 
disunion.  And  no  work  ought  to  seem  too  hard  or 
tedious  to  parents,  if  it  promises  to  give  their  boys 
a  saner  view,  while  the  boys  are  still  within  reach  of 
parental  advice  and  help. 

One  last  word  to  parents.  Don't  expect  too  much ! 
Boys  will  always  be  boys  and  girls  will  be  girls. 
To  mature  eyes  youth  will  probably  always  appear 
fitful  and  improvident.  If  you  can  not  persevere 
through  indifference  and  backsliding,  or  if  you 
send  your  children  to  school  with  a  feeling  of 
relief  that  now  some  one  else  is  responsible  for 
them  and  you  can  have  a  little  time  to  yourself,  my 
advice  to  you  is  to  let  things  go  on  the  way  they 
are.  But  if  your  idea  of  parenthood  involves  never- 
failing  endeavor  for  the  children's  good;  if  your 
idea  of  a  school  is  an  institution  where,  under  the 
best  possible  conditions,  children  are  prepared  to 
live  the  best  possible  mature  lives,  then  go  ahead! 
Experiment  with  the  suggestions  in  this  chapter; 
improve  on  them.  If  one  plan  fails,  invent  another. 
Try  all  the  methods  you  can  think  of.  Never  lose 
sight  of  the  guiding  principle  that  parents  are  re- 
sponsible for  their  children's  education  even  more 
than  for  their  food  and  clothing ;  that  no  education 
is  adequate  which  does  not  train  character  as  well  as 


214  SELF-RELIANCE 

tnind!  Be  patient!  Persevere!  And  when  your 
children  reach  the  age  when  false  steps  bring  cruel 
punishments,  you  will  not  be  without  your  reward. 

FOR  REFERENCE 

Athletic  Training  for  School-boys,  G.  W.  Orton 
(American  Sports  Publishing  Co.). 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  NEW  TOWNS 

THE  school-lunch,  the  sewing  classes,  the  boys' 
organizations,  which  have  been  described 
above,  are,  after  all,  only  makeshifts,  set  down  in 
order  to  show  that  it  is  possible  to  bring  some  real 
processes  of  life  into  the  school  without  waiting; 
that  an  energetic  and  devoted  parent  can,  now,  to- 
day, set  in  motion  some  simple  machinery  which  will 
awaken  in  children  that  realizing  sense  of  what  has 
to  be  done  in  the  world,  a  knowledge  that  always 
brings  in  its  train  (with  unspoiled  human  beings) 
the  excellent  instinct  to  rise  up  and  do  it. 

Beyond  these  few  temporary  devices,  every  en- 
lightened parent  should  be  on  the  alert  to  study  the 
specifications  proposed  for  every  school  building 
and  to  fight  any  plan  to  construct  it  along  the  old 
lines  as  energetically  as  he  would  fight  a  grafting 
candidate  for  mayor.  The  wrong  mayor  occupying 
his  office  one  term  would  not  be  comparable  as  a 
calamity  to  the  spending  of  many  thousands  of  the 
citizens'  money  in  erecting  another  imposing,  many- 

215 


216  SELF-RELIANCE 

windowed  edifice  when  for  infinitely  less  there  might 
be  created  a  "school  home"  with  space  and  air  and 
freedom  as  its  first  characteristics. 

Let  him  stand  adamant  against  the  costly  build- 
ing which  makes  no  provision  for  the  child's  life 
beyond  the  purely,  formally  intellectual.  Let  him 
remember  how  little  home  life  children  get  now- 
adays at  home,  and  insist  that  they  shall  get  it  some- 
where in  the  twentieth  century.  The  first  need  for 
children  if  they  are  to  have  a  natural  life  is  space, 
and  the  sense  of  moral  freedom  which  space  brings. 
Less  money  in  the  school  buildings  and  more  on  the 
grounds  around  it,  would  result  in  an  institution 
the  very  look  of  which  would  be  stimulating  and 
comforting  to  a  child's  heart.  If  space  is  too  ex- 
pensive in  the  region  where  the  children  live  (al- 
though an  American  town  should  blush  to  admit 
that  what  is  essential  for  the  children's  welfare  is 
too  expensive  to  procure  for  them),  why,  then  trans- 
port the  children  out  to  where  space  is  to  be  had. 
In  less  enlightened  days  they  were  transported  away 
from  space  and  light  and  air  and  freedom  into  the 
rabbit-warren  of  a  big  building.  Now  let  the  same 
machinery  be  reversed,  and  carry  them  out  to  their 
place  in  the  sun. 

This  is,  of  course,  a  counsel  of  perfection:  the 
ideal  toward  which  to  work.  The  establishment  of 
outdoor  schools,  with  their  simplicity  and  economy 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS        217 

would  be  a  great  step  forward  in  our  advance  to- 
ward a  school  organization  where  most  of  the  money 
goes  to  the  essentials  of  instruction  and  character 
building,  and  very  little  toward  the  unessentials  of 
plate  glass  and  janitor  service.  But  in  spite  of 
the  successful  example  of  the  outdoor  school  in 
Buffalo  described  in  Chapter  XIV,  a  school  which 
flourishes  in  a  climate  as  vigorous  as  any  in  our 
country,  it  will  probably  be  impossible  for  a  good 
many  years  to  shake  ordinary  people,  especially 
those  composing  school  boards,  out  of  the  steam- 
heat  superstition.  At  least  parents  can  make  a 
beginning  now  by  agitating  for  simpler  school 
buildings,  and  more  humanizing  surroundings,  for 
more  space  about  the  school,  for  provisions  to 
be  made  for  breaking  up  the  great  masses  of 
children  into  smaller  irregular  groups,  in  which  in- 
dividuality has  more  play.  Conditions  vary  so  ex- 
tremely in  different  American  communities  that  it 
would  be  unprofitable  to  set  down  in  detail  all  pos- 
sible suggestions  for  the  partial  transformation  of 
the  existing  office  building  known  as  the  public 
school,  into  a  children's  educational  home.  The 
essential  is  to  present  to  ingenious  American  minds 
the  extreme  desirability  of  this  transformation.  Any 
student  of  the  much-described  Gary  system  will  get 
from  that  excellent  source  of  original  ideas  number- 
less suggestions  for  bringing  the  school  children  of 


218  SELF-RELIANCE 

his  region  under  a  regime  that  approximates  civilized 
social  life-in-common,  and  under  which  in  the  nat- 
ural routine  of  the  day  there  occur  sufficient  oppor- 
tunities for  the  children  to  take  responsibility.  Or 
if  any  one  will  write  to  the  school  authorities  of 
Newton,  Massachusetts,  for  detailed  information 
about  the  splendid  home-making  course  of  study  in 
their  high  school,  he  will  not  fail  to  see  a  dozen  ways 
to  approach  his  own  problem. 

From  people  in  temperate  or  warm  climates,  much 
may  reasonably  be  hoped  in  the  way  of  more  com- 
plete action  taken  without  great  delay.  As  soon  as 
the  description  of  the  Park  School  in  Buffalo  ap- 
peared in  a  magazine  it  aroused  the  liveliest  inter- 
est in  Pacific  Coast  dwellers,  and  among  school 
authorities  in  the  southern  states.  A  great  many 
letters  asking  for  more  detailed  information  were 
received  from  people  in  those  mild  climates,  who 
were  quick  to  see  how  completely  adapted  to  their 
needs  are  the  simplicity,  the  directness,  the  absence 
of  mechanical  complication  characteristic  of  an  out- 
door school.  It  is  for  people  in  such  favored  regions 
to  show  the  way  for  the  rest  of  us,  and  for  them  the 
following  detailed  information  is  set  down.  The 
cost  given  is  for  work  done  in  the  city  of  Buffalo 
and  would  certainly  be  less  in  a  town  or  village. 

A  bungalow  thirty  by  thirty  feet  is  amply  large 
for  a  class  of  thirty  children.  One  solid  wall  is  pro- 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS       219 

vided,  on  which  to  put  the  blackboard  and  neces- 
sary shelves.  Canvas  curtains  that  roll  up  and  down 
on  rollers,  are  hung  on  the  other  three  sides,  two  or 
more  of  which  may  thus  be  closed  on  stormy  days 
to  keep  out  the  rain  or  snow.  Or  sliding  glass 
windows  may  be  put  in  on  the  two  sides  from  which 
storms  generally  come  and  a  canvas  curtain  used 
only  for  the  fourth  side/  Four  hundred  dollars  put 
up  such  a  building  in  Buffalo,  without  any  fancy 
work  such  as  children's  individual  closets,  shelves, 
book  cases,  etc.  If  possible  the  children  themselves 
should  help  in  the  construction  of  these  furnishings. 
This  keeps  down  the  cost  and  directly  furthers  the 
purpose  of  the  school,  which  is  to  supply  occasions 
for  the  exercise  of  initiative  on  the  part  of  the 
children. 

The  question  of  a  gymnasium  is  solved  for  the 
most  part  by  the  simple  expedient  of  having  space 
about  the  schoolroom.  For  stormy  days  a  play- 
porch  can  be  used.  This  need  be  nothing  more  than 
a  roof  with  supporting  pillars  and  canvas  curtains 
— hardly  more  expensive  than  the  shed  which  any 
thrifty  farmer  builds  to  shelter  his  mowing-machine 
and  hay-rake.  Formal  gymnasium  equipment  is  ex- 
ceedingly expensive,  and  fortunately  not  at  all  nec- 
essary for  children.  Fresh  air  and  space  are  the 
most  necessary  elements  in  gymnastic  work,  and 
these  can  be  supplemented  by  very  simple  appa- 


220  SELF-RELIANCE 

ratus,  a  part  of  which  the  children  can  make  for 
themselves.  All  Swedish  gymnastics  and  folk-danc- 
ing need  nothing  but  room  enough  to  stand  and  move 
about.  A  pair  of  rings  can  be  bought  for  seventy 
cents  and  hung  by  rope  that  may  cost  perhaps  thirty 
cents.  A  trapeze  can  be  made  by  suspending  a  stout 
section  of  a  shovel  handle  (or  a  pitchfork  handle) 
from  ropes.  Bean-bag  boards,  and  rope-quoits  can 
be  made  as  part  of  the  hand  work.  A  big  rope  hang- 
ing from  a  beam  is  not  an  expensive  item,  and  is  a 
source  of  endless  fun  and  exercise  in  nimbleness. 

The  manual-training  department  can  also  be  han- 
dled under  almost  any  sort  of  roof,  if  the  children 
are  hardy  and  used  to  working  outdoors.  After  the 
beginning,  to  a  very  considerable  extent  the  children 
can  make  the  necessary  shelves,  closets,  nail-chests, 
etc.,  and  their  interest  is  unusually  augmented  by 
doing  it.  A  fair  estimate  for  buying  work  benches, 
equipment  for  benches  and  necessary  tools,  is  fifteen 
dollars  per  child. 

The  uses  to  which  the  workshop  is  put,  after  it  is 
once  fitted  up  by  the  children,  are  almost  without 
end.  Just  as  a  "handy  man"  finds  no  limit  to  the 
odd  jobs  possible  in  making  improvements  about  his 
home,  so  the  children,  if  they  have  the  home  feeling 
toward  their  school,  never  weary  of  working  for  it. 
The  problem  will  not  be  to  fill  in  vacant  time,  but  to 
find  time  and  material  for  all  the  children  want  to 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS       221 

do.  The  element  of  space  around  each  grade  house 
means  that  the  construction  need  not  be  limited  to 
book-racks  and  letter  boxes,  or  the  other  small 
objects  usually  manufactured  in  manual-training 
classes.  The  exactitude  and  accuracy  needed  for 
such  articles  often  makes  younger  children  rather 
nervous  and,  feeling  the  enterprise  a  difficult  one, 
they  incline  to  lean  heavily  on  the  instruction  of 
their  teacher,  and  frequently  never  undertake  any 
other  similar  enterprise  on  their  own  responsibility. 
They  are  always  greatly  more  stimulated  and  heart- 
ened to  independent  effort  if  they  can  put  up  small 
buildings,  chicken-houses,  rabbit-hutches,  play- 
houses, tool-sheds  and  the  like,  rough  structures, 
where  an  eighth  of  an  inch  is  not  a  hanging  matter, 
where  an  hour's  work  makes  an  appreciable  dif- 
ference in  the  look  of  the  thing,  where  a  group  of 
children  can  work  together,  and  the  result  of  which 
is  an  actual  structure,  a  water-proof  shelter,  a  home 
in  miniature. 

New  communities,  or  those  growing  fast  and 
needing  new  schools  have  thus  an  unequaled  oppor- 
tunity to  make  a  fresh  start  along  the  lines  of  the 
school  home  with  natural  surroundings.  One  great 
advantage  of  the  plan  is  that  it  can  grow  with  the 
growth  of  the  school  population.  The  very  low  cost 
of  construction  and  maintenance  of  the  separate  lit- 
tle bungalows  for  each  grade  will  more  than  make 


222  SELF-RELIANCE 

up  for  the  saving  which  might  be  effected  by  having 
all  under  one  roof.  The  natural  breaking  up  of  the 
children  into  small  groups,  often  self-divided,  means 
that  one  teacher  can  easily  care  for  as  many  or  more 
children  as  under  the  present  plan.  If  those  who 
have  finished  a  recitation,  or  a  piece  of  work  are 
allowed  to  go  out  to  feed  the  hens  or  weed  the  gar- 
den or  sweep  the  snow  from  the  walks,  or  if  they 
have  a  piece  of  school-repairing  on  hand ;  or  if  they 
can  be  detailed  to  set  the  table  for  the  common 
luncheon;  if,  in  short,  there  are  in  the  school  any- 
thing like  the  simple,  natural  and  varied  useful 
activities  of  a  home,  there  will  be  less  of  the  sterile 
vacant  sitting  still  and  looking  out  of  the  window, 
which  is  one  of  the  curses  of  the  mass  system  of 
education. 

Children  occupied  in  this  way  need  only  occasional 
attention  from  the  teacher,  who  can  concentrate  her 
efforts  on  the  small  group  actually  engaged  in  recit- 
ing. She  can  demand  of  them  concentrated,  brisk, 
animated,  mental  activity.  She  can  obtain  this  be- 
cause she  is  close  to  every  one,  and  because  the  chil- 
dren can  be  very  closely  graded  so  that  only  those 
of  approximately  the  same  capacity  work  together. 
The  general  moral  atmosphere  of  such  a  grade 
home  is,  of  course,  the  most  important  item  in  the 
detached  bungalow  outdoor  system.  The  fact  that 
they  have  their  own  home  which  they  may  decorate 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS       223 

as  they  please,  which  reflects  the  individuality  of 
their  group,  banishes  the  irresponsible  indifferent- 
ism  of  children  whose  schoolroom  is  precisely  like 
one  of  forty  others  under  the  same  roof.  The  atti- 
tude of  such  children  is  apt  to  be  like  that  of  the 
professional  traveler  with  his  impersonal  disre- 
gard for  the  management  of  the  hotel,  the  train 
or  the  steamship  which  chances  for  the  moment  to 
shelter  him.  He  has  no  affection  for  any  of  those 
places,  little  interest  in  their  problems,  less  sym- 
pathy for  their  difficulties,  because  he  has  no  re- 
sponsibility for  their  conduct.  The  child  with  a 
school  home  is  more  like  a  man  living  with  his 
family  under  his  own  roof.  He  is  alive  to  the 
needs,  the  processes,  the  possibilities  of  his  sur- 
roundings, because  they  are  his.  Children  who 
have  a  large  part  in  the  responsibility  for  the  wel- 
fare of  their  own  small  school  home  and  who  feel 
a  pride  in  its  attractiveness  will  no  more  mischiev- 
ously deface  or  harm  it  than  would  other  prop- 
erty owners.  They  do  not  need  a  teacher's  watch- 
ful eye  as  they  step  about  at  their  share  of  the 
various  tasks  of  their  home.  The  teacher  herself 
is  relieved  of  a  vast  amount  of  necessity  for  dis- 
cipline and  nervous  strain,  by  the  abandonment 
of  school  conditions  inherently  unnatural  for  chil- 
dren, by  the  pure  air,  the  quiet  privacy  of  the 
schoolroom,  and  by  the  absence  of  the  necessity 


224  SELF-RELIANCE 

constantly  to  invent  "busy  work"  which  is  inter- 
esting enough  to  keep  a  child  immobile  at  his  desk, 
If  the  plain  ordinary  conditions  of  the  plain  or- 
dinary home  are  somewhat  reproduced,  the  questior 
of  "busy  work"  settles  itself.  There  is  enough  tc 
go  around. 

If  anybody  is  asking  himself  why  such  an  earnest 
exhortation  to  a  new  kind  of  school  should  be  a 
part  of  a  book  on  responsibility  for  children,  lei 
him  ask  himself  if  he  can  think  of  any  single  change 
in  American  child  life  which  would  do  more  foi 
the  elimination  of  passivity  and  irresponsibility  and 
go  further  toward  the  development  of  the  natural 
human  impulse  to  take  hold  and  help  run  things. 
Just  as  the  fact  of  the  tremendous  numbers 
in  a  great  city  (however  stimulating  it  may  be  tc 
some  temperaments)  indubitably  dissolves  away 
some  of  the  sense  of  individual  responsibility  from 
each  member  of  the  throng,  no  lover  of  childhood 
can  deny  the  deadening,  numbing  effect  upon  chil- 
dren— especially  younger  ones — of  the  present  mass 
system  of  education. 

We  therefore  look  to  our  southern  and  Pacific 
Coast  cousins  to  be  the  first  to  set  us  the  good  ex- 
ample of  the  school-colony  of  small  cottages  close 
to  the  earth.  But  it  is  very  much  to  be  hoped  that 
people  in  less  obviously  tempting  climates  may  take 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS        225 

courage  from  the  zero  temperature  of  Buffalo  and 
the  successful  conduct  of  the  Park  School  there. 
If  the  open-air  rooms  seem  too  radical  an  experi- 
ment, small  enclosed  bungalows  could  be  used,  with- 
out violating  any  essential  element  of  the  plan. 
These  could  be  heated  by  small  individual  stoves 
or  by  steam  brought  through  underground  pipes. 
They  may  be  constructed  of  almost  any  material 
and  according  to  almost  any  design.  All  that  is 
essential  is  that  they  give  sufficient  shelter  and  light, 
and  that  they  are  not  large,  elaborately  finished  or 
expensive. 

Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  in  time  a  "public 
school"  may  cease  to  mean  a  towering  brick  build- 
ing with  paved  streets  all  around  it,  but  that  in- 
stead visitors  will  be  taken  to  walk  through  the 
grounds  of  a  public  school  as  now  through  the 
campus  of  a  well-kept  college.  It  will  be  one  of 
the  beauty-spots  of  the  town,  and  leading  citizens 
instead  of  rolling  under  their  tongues  the  cost  of 
velvet  curtains  for  the  stage  of  the  school  audito- 
rium, will  learn  to  descant  proudly  upon  the  economy 
and  thrift  shown  by  the  children  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  small  home-like  buildings  scattered  about 
under  the  trees.  Such  visitors  will  not  regret  the 
loss  of  the  handsome  architectural  features  of  the 
older  steam-heated  schools,  because  they  will  see 


226  SELF-RELIANCE 

about  these  attractive  school  homes  an  infinity  of 
enterprise  suitable  to  the  ages  of  the  children  of 
each  grade. 

Even  the  casual  visitor  may  be  relied  upon  to 
feel  thankfully  the  blessed  absence  of  the  blurring, 
smudging,  feature-obliterating  pressure  of  great 
numbers  compactly  massed.  He  will  feel  that  those 
schoolhouses,  each  with  its  own  individuality,  sym- 
bolize the  child  life  of  the  school,  protected  by  the 
simple  element  of  space  from  the  paralyzing  sense 
of  crowds  which  makes  the  realization  of  individual 
responsibility,  even  indeed  of  individual  existence, 
difficult  for  the  individual  to  achieve. 

The  author  is  perfectly  aware  that  with  a  per- 
haps unjustified  contrary-mindedness,  she  is  run- 
ning directly  counter  to  much  of  the  present  trend 
of  the  educational  world ;  and  she  knows,  from  hav- 
ing tried  the  idea  on  various  mixed  audiences,  how 
revolutionary  and  reactionary  must  sound  any  pro- 
test against  assembling  children  in  big  modern, 
efficiently  run  school  buildings.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
well  to  add  a  few  words  more,  in  direct  answer  to 
the  objections,  which  have  almost  certainly  arisen 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader  familiar  with  the  splendid 
enthusiasm  that  has  been  expended  on  improving 
school  conditions  by  gathering  children  into  large 
central  schools. 

Of  course  the  large  central  school,  in  the  midst 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS        227 

of  a  population  dense  enough  and  compactly  enough 
massed  about  the  school  so  that  the  children  have 
not  far  to  go,  is  too  natural  and  economical  an 
educational  expedient  to  expect  to  change  except  as 
a  result  of  deeply  changed  public  opinion.  For 
such  situations  as  in  all  city  situations  the  elements 
of  air  and  space  are  exceedingly  difficult  to  secure. 
In  the  distant  future  we  may  see  all  such  institu- 
tions housed  in  parks  or  other  open  places;  but  an 
immense  readjustment  would  be  involved. 

However,  none  of  this  holds  true  for  the  coun- 
try. A  very  large  part  of  America  is  still  rural, 
and  yet  the  tendency  has  been  to  bring  children 
from  the  country  together  into  large  masses  in  big 
buildings.  The  ground  can  be  cleared  of  at  least 
one  possible  misunderstanding  by  making  the  frank 
admission  at  once  that  few  school  conditions  could 
be  much  worse  than  the  district  or  country  school 
as  it  now  frequently  exists,  a  one-room  building 
sheltering  forty  or  fifty  children,  ungraded,  in 
charge  of  a  badly  trained,  underpaid  teacher  who 
knows  nothing  outside  of  books.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  patriotic  Americans  revolted  at  this 
state  of  things  and  gave  their  thought,  effort  and 
money  freely  to  remove  the  children  from  these 
objectionable  conditions.  The  remarks  on  schools 
in  this  book  are  meant  to  raise  the  question  whether 
the  same  amount  of  time,  effort  and  money  freely 


228  SELF-RELIANCE 

expended  on  country  schools,  where  they  stand, 
would  not  have  resulted  in  still  better  conditions? 
Certain  late  developments  in  very  modern  schools 
undoubtedly  suggest  that  they  would. 

The  chief  reasons  for  the  gathering  of  children 
in  large  schools  in  centers  of  population  are:  that 
a  principal  or  superintendent  can  supervise  the 
whole  system,  that  there  is  an  economy  in  fuel  and 
in  administration;  that  the  children  can  be  better 
graded, — and  better  grading  means  an  immense 
improvement  in  instruction  as  all  teachers  know. 
The  reasons  against  large  central  schools  have  not 
been  so  clearly  presented  to  the  public,  nor  indeed 
so  clearly  thought  out  by  educators.  The  most  ap- 
parent, of  course,  is  the  very  objectionable  ride  to 
school  by  the  children.  Any  one  who  has  had  any 
personal  experience  of  the  actual  working  of  the 
scheme  for  transporting  numbers  of  children  long 
(or  even  comparatively  short)  distances  to  and 
from  school,  will  admit  without  argument  the  en- 
tirely undesirable  character  of  the  hour  or  hour 
and  a  half  spent  in  this  way.  The  children  are  not 
exercising.  They  are  frequently  exposed  to  the 
weather,  or  if  not  they  are  shut  up  in  bad  air;  they 
are  crowded  together  and  practically  without  re- 
straint or  supervision  from  any  adult,  because  the 
driver  of  the  stage  can  scarcely  be  expected  to  do 
more  than  attend  to  the  safe  driving  of  his  horses 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS       229 

or  car.  The  expense  of  a  "matron"  to  accompany 
the  scholars  is  in  most  cases  far  too  great  to  be 
added  to  the  already  considerable  expense  of  the 
school-stage  itself.  The  time  they  spend  in  this 
way  is  almost  entirely  unprofitable  and  sometimes 
worse.  Finally  the  expense  is  astonishingly  large 
— frequently  quite  enough  to  have  paid  for  an  as- 
sistant to  the  teacher  at  the  old  district  school. 
Other  things  being  equal,  it  certainly  seems,  in  this 
era  of  cheap  small  motor-cars  easier  to  transport 
one  principal  or  superintendent  from  school  to 
school,  instead  of  transporting  all  the  children  in 
to  him. 

What  are  some  of  the  other  elements  involved 
in  taking  children  into  a  big  central  school?  One 
result  is  that  the  question  of  "education"  is  still 
further  removed  from  the  lives  of  the  citizens  of 
that  region.  Their  children  are  taken  away  into 
strange  surroundings;  they  play  with  children 
whom  their  parents  do  not  know  and  never  will 
know.  They  are  in  an  environment  with  every  de- 
tail of  which  their  parents  are  wholly  unfamiliar. 
The  line  of  cleavage  between  home  and  school,  al- 
ready more  than  deep  enough,  becomes  tragically 
absolute  and  complete.  Possibilities  for  relating 
home  activities  to  school  life  become  faded  and  re- 
mote, because  all  collaboration  between  parent  and 
teacher  is  carried  on  at  such  long  range.  The  chil- 


230  SELF-RELIANCE 

dren  are  taken  away  from  their  home  surround- 
ings, where  their  parents  live  and  must  continue  to 
live,  and,  at  a  very  impressionable  age,  are  strongly 
inoculated  with  the  crowd  virus — the  virus  that 
works  so  strongly  in  confined  city-dwellers  as  to 
make  them  positively  panic-stricken  by  an  experi- 
ence of  the  wholesome,  strengthening  solitude, 
which  is  an  occasional  accompaniment  of  country 
life.  A  large  part  of  the  day  of  these  expatriated 
country  children  is  spent  in  the  midst  of  city  life, 
from  which  they  return  to  their  homes  for  rela- 
tively brief  periods.  This  would  be  all  very  well 
if  our  aim  was  to  wean  them  away  from  the  coun- 
try-side; but  it  is  not;  quite  the  contrary. 

Of  course,  the  reason  why  we  think  it  all  very 
well  now,  or  at  least  the  best  we  can  do,  is  because 
we  have  convinced  ourselves  that  a  room  in  the 
big,  modern,  several-storied  school  building  is  the 
best  place  for  a  child  to  learn  how  to  live.  If  we 
could  but  see  that  the  original  country  schoolhouse, 
converted  into  a  school  home,  would  supply  a  coun- 
try child  (any  child,  for  that  matter)  with  a  more 
natural,  healthful  background  for  his  life,  we  would 
at  once  concede  that  everything  else  points  unmis- 
takably toward  giving  him  his  schooling  where  his 
life  is  rooted  instead  of  tearing  him  up  by  force 
out  of  that  native  soil. 

To  be  sure  the  "district  school"  must  not  be  left 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS        231 

the  dreary  little  anachronism  it  now  is.  But  the 
task  of  making  it  over  need  frighten  no  one,  for 
dreary  as  it  looks,  the  old-fashioned  district  school 
is  one  of  the  most  promising  fields  for  the  modern 
transformation  of  a  school  into  a  place  for  children 
to  learn  by  leading  natural  lives.  It  has  by 
its  physical  remoteness  escaped  being  sucked  into 
the  maelstrom  of  mechanical  complications,  and 
offers  an  opportusity  for  an  almost  fresh  start.  If 
the  children  and  the  community  can  be  made  to  see 
it  as  a  poor  little  neglected  home,  unbeautified  and 
uncared  for,  generous  American  instincts  will  do 
the  rest.  And  it  profits  by  having  little  to  begin 
with.  The  blessed  attributes  of  space  and  moral 
elbow-room  are  there, — ours  for  the  asking.  Any- 
thing the  children  do  to  beautify  it  shows  so  plainly! 
A  move  to  make  the  school  the  center  of  the  total 
child  life  of  the  region  encounters  no  uneasy  janitor, 
endangers  no  expensive  heating  plant,  upsets  no 
elaborate  relays  of  scrub-women.  Lumber  is  cheap. 
The  men  of  the  community  are  all  familiar  with 
the  process  of  putting  up  roughly  constructed  build- 
ings. It  would  be  quite  possible  to  use  the  "State 
aid"  money  which  now  goes  to  the  central  school, 
in  adding  a  room  or  two,  or  a  teacher  or  two 
to  the  country  school.  Everything  is  on  a  plain 
homely  scale  of  expenditure,  and  so  money  goes 
much  further  than  when  the  building  is  handsome 


232  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  everything  must  come  up  to  the  standard.  Chil- 
dren up  to  the  eighth  grade  are  not  a  whit  better 
off  with  costly  apparatus  of  any  sort;  and  children 
of  that  age  are  the  ones  most  helplessly  responsive 
to  the  alien  conditions  of  a  large  school  in  a  center 
of  population. 

Lastly,  many,  many  precious  advantages  belong 
to  the  country  school,  without  money  and  without 
price.  There  is  space  about  it  for  gardening  and 
truck- farming;  there  is  still  lingering  on  in  the 
country  in  spite  of  industrialism  a  tradition  of  self- 
help  for  children,  which  would  make  poultry  rais- 
ing and  similar  activities  no  startling  innovations; 
there  is  the  Bureau  of  Education  at  Washington 
more  than  eager  to  cooperate  with  suggestions  and 
practical  help.  There  is  above  all  the  fact  that 
the  organic  relation  of  the  school  to  the  community 
can  be  made  so  much  plainer  to  the  average  human 
eye  in  the  country  where  numbers  are  not  so  con- 
fusing. It  is  possible  not  only  to  induce  the  people 
of  the  community  to  pay  school-taxes,  which  most 
Americans  can  always  be  induced  to  do;  but  to  in- 
duce them  to  give  something  of  themselves  to  the 
school,  to  understand,  to  feel  that  it  is  their  insti- 
tution. Even  if  a  specially  trained  teacher  of  agri- 
culture can  not  be  afforded  (although  I  do  not  see 
why  one  could  not  be  passed  about  from  school 


NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  TOWNS       233 

to  school  as  now  from  room  to  room)  if  the  best 
farmer  in  the  region  will  come  and  show  the  boys 
how  to  prepare  a  piece  of  ground  for  sowing  seed, 
the  boys  will  learn  a  great  deal  and  the  farmer  will 
never  again  be  able  to  hold  himself  aloof  from 
the  schools  as  in  the  past.  All  the  plans  proposed 
in  the  preceding  chapter  for  the  active  cooperation 
of  parents  in  the  schools,  are  particularly  practi- 
cable in  a  country  community  where  everybody  is 
on  familiar  terms,  and  there  is  a  felt  solidarity  in 
society. 

All  this  will  require  effort,  of  course,  effort  and 
money  and  intelligence  and  tact  and  cooperation 
between  all  available  forces  working  for  our  school 
system.  But  will  not  all  this  effort  result  in  school 
conditions  which  are  more  natural,  more  whole- 
some, less  nerve-trying,  and  above  all,  more  calcu- 
lated to  draw  from  each  individual  child  all  the 
capacity  for  self-reliance  and  responsibility  within 
him?  Progress  goes  traditionally  in  a  spiral,  not 
in  a  straight  course ;  and  I  venture  to  think  that  the 
quaintness  of  its  advance  was  never  more  obvious 
than  in  the  fact  that  its  great  circling  sweep  has 
brought  it  around  again  to  a  point  where  the  much- 
despised  country  school  offers  the  best  of  all  pos- 
sible fields  for  reconstruction  along  the  most  modern 
and  advanced  lines. 


234  SELF-RELIANCE 

FOR  REFERENCE 

Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  C.  A.  Perry 
(Charities  Publishing  Co.). 

Country  Life  and  the  Country  School,  Mabel 
Carney  (Row,  Peterson  &  Co.). 

Rural  Life  and  the  Rural  School,  J.  Kennedy 
(American  Book  Co.). 

Better  Rural  Schools,  Betts  and  Hall  (The  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Co.). 

The  Brown  Mouse,  Herbert  Quick  (The  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Co.). 


CHAPTER  XVII 

POSTSCRIPT 

WHAT  follows  here  is  not  intended  for  people 
of  strong  character,  people  who  need  only 
to  see  their  duty  to  rejoice  in  performing  it,  people 
for  whom  no  labor  is  too  great  if  they  may  thereby 
accomplish  a  desirable  end.  All  such  men  and 
women  (if  any  such  exist)  need  to  read  no  further. 
But  ordinary  average  mothers  and  fathers  are  not 
cast  in  any  such  Spartan  mold  and  my  own  erring 
and  feeble  nature  makes  me  quite  aware  of  what 
must  have  been  in  the  minds  of  many  a  reader  as 
he  has  perused  the  preceding  chapters.  I  know 
(having  uttered  it  myself)  his  unspoken  exclama- 
tion of,  "Oh,  what  a  lot  of  work !"  I  know  (hav- 
ing felt  it)  his  sinking  of  heart  as  he  contemplates 
the  labor  involved  in  carrying  out  all  these  sug- 
gestions; and  I  have  a  word  or  two  to  say  to  him, 
as  from  one  very  human  being  to  another. 

In  the  first  place,  probably  no  one  person  could 
carry  out  all  the  suggestions  in  this  book,  or  in  any 
other  similar  book  which  attempts  to  help  people 
better  to  order  their  lives.  Nor  is  this  unfortunate, 
since  very  likely  some  of  the  detailed  suggestions 
would  not  suit  many  conditions  in  many  American 

235 


236  SELF-RELIANCE 

lives.  In  child-training,  as  in  everything  else,  the 
practicable  program  is:  do  the  best  you  can,  and 
every  day  make  that  best  a  little  better. 

Second, — yes,  of  course,  it  is  hard  to  teach  chil- 
dren self-reliance;  but  it  is  hard  to  earn  a  living; 
it  is  hard  to  have  a  good  garden ;  it  is  hard  to  play 
the  piano;  it  is  hard  to  do  anything  that  is  worth 
doing.  And  nothing  is  more  worth  while  than  an 
honest  effort  to  improve  the  relations  of  parents 
and  children ;  nothing  is  more  important  to  children, 
to  parents,  to  the  world  of  to-morrow. 

In  the  third  place,  let  the  parent,  flinching  with 
a  natural  human  impulse  from  giving  up  so  much 
of  his  life  to  his  children,  remember  that  he  is  in 
the  situation  of  the  general  who  has  burned  his 
bridges  behind  him.  No  going  back  is  possible.  Go 
forward  he  must.  The  only  choice  he  has  left  is 
between  doing  well  or  ill  the  undertaking  which  he, 
and  nobody  else,  has  set  before  him. 

Lest  this  consideration,  true  as  it  is,  sound  too 
grim  and  forbidding,  I  hasten  to  say  finally  what 
every  father  and  every  mother  knows,  that  they  are 
an  unusually  fortunate  and  gifted  pair  of  parents, 
who  can  find  in  life  anything  at  all  comparable  to 
the  job  of  bringing  up  their  children,  for  interest, 
for  unexpectedness,  for  sanity  and  laughter  and 
health  and  pure  joy. 

THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 

Account-keeping,  130. 

Allowances :  training  for,  129,  131 ;  regularity  in,  132. 

Analysis   of   desires,    108. 

Athletic  association:  199  ff;  apparatus  for,  208,  220. 

Athletics,  general  participation  in  school,  202  ff. 

Baby  and  the  candle,  101. 

Birthdays,  35. 

Books  as  tools,  91,  94,  96. 

Borrowing,  210  ff. 

Boy-Scout  Manual,  63,  74. 

Boy  Scouts,  70,  73. 

Budget  system,  126. 

Building,  221. 

Bureau  drawers,  20. 

Buying:  how  to  restrain,  112;  how  to  regulate,  115  ff,  123. 

Camps:  70;  family,  76. 

Carpenter's  bench,  62. 

Cavemaking,  77. 

Character  training  in  schools:   147,  156;  parents  responsible 

for,  158,  159. 
Charades,  87. 
Chauffeur,  being  a,  106. 
Children  and  servants,  40. 
Children  as  boarders  in  the  home,  27,  30. 
Circus  fever,  108. 

Creative  instinct  stimulated  by  raw  material,  56. 
"Crete  idea,"  195. 
"Crowd  virus,"  230. 

Desert  island  everywhere,  70. 
Desires:  analysis,  108;  suppressed,  100. 
Doll-making,  58. 

239 


240  INDEX 

Dolls,  paper,  65. 
Door-bell,  answering,  45. 
Dramatics,  home,  66. 

Early  childhood:  importance  of,   16 ff;   desire  for  self-help 

in,  18,  19. 
Earning  money :  for  young  children,  36,  37 ;  for  older  children, 

122,  209  ff . 

Educational  experts  versus  parents,  157,  183  ff. 
Encyclopaedia,  94,  96,  97. 

Fairhope  school,  Alabama,  155. 

Family  atmosphere  in  school,  177,  185,  187,  196,  220,  222. 

Family  camp,  76. 

Family  hikes,  71,  73. 

Financial  councils,  family,  116. 

Gary  school,  155,  188,  217. 
Geography,  a  lesson  in,  176. 
Going  to  bed,  46. 
Grounds,  school,  215,  225. 
Gymnasium,  school,  219  ff. 

Habit:  importance  of,  24,  55;  of  initiative  pervasive,  55. 

Hikes:  family,  71,  73;  school,  205. 

Home  activities:  child's  share  in,  30,  33,  34;  decreasing  im- 
portance of,  39;  modern,  5,  43  ff;  old-fashioned,  7,  151. 

Home-making  instinct,  139. 

Home,  transformation  under  industrialism,  149. 

Housekeeping,  too  perfect,  27,  28. 

Housework :  not  all-important,  39 ;  difficulty  of  replacing,  42  ff ; 
for  adolescent  girls,  139  ff. 

Imitation:  26,  27;  in  financial  responsibility,  125,  128. 
Independence,  natural  desire  in  early  childhood,  18,  19. 
Indian  life,  102,  105. 

Industrialism,  effect  of  on  child  life,  4,  9,  58,  150  ff,  164  ff. 
Initiative,  habit  of,  pervasive,  55. 


INDEX  241 

Kitchen,  school,  175,  192,  193. 

Laundry  and  mending,  44. 
Lever,  use  of,  23. 
Lewis,  Mary,  182. 
Librarians,  93. 
Lunches,  school,  187. 

Machinery  of  ceremonial,  82,  83. 

Manual  work :  building,  221 ;  place  for,  61. 

Maps,  74,  75. 

Mending,  44. 

Modeling-clay,  57. 

Modern  life  opposed  to  self-reliance,  3,  164,  170,  179. 

Money:    earning   for   young   children,   36,    37;    spending,   no 

training  for,  112;  importance  of,  110. 
Montessori  method  in  daily  life,  18,  19,  43,  154. 
Mother  working  out  of  home,  40,  42,  43,  138,  141. 

Newton,  Mass.,  218. 
Nurse-maid,  42. 

Old-fashioned  home  activities,  7,  151,  171. 
Outdoor  schools,  172,  217,  225. 

Parents'  changed  relations  to  schools,  146  ff. 

Parents  versus  educational  experts,  157,  183  ff. 

Park  school,  160,  188,  217,  218. 

Parties,  85,  86,  88. 

Passive  possession,  9,  10,  56,  59. 

Patience,  need  of,  213,  235. 

Picnics,  87. 

Playgrounds,  school,  205  ff. 

Playroom,  order  in,  47. 

Purpose,  child's,   16,   17. 

Raw  materials,  list  of,  66. 
Regularity  of  tasks,  33. 

Responsibility:  financial,  117;  for  adolescent  girls,  135;  im- 
portance of,  41,  175;  mother's,  33. 


242  INDEX 

Restaurant  meals,  52. 
Routine  of  daily  life,  44. 
Rural  schools,  227  ff,  231  ff. 

Salesmanship,  schools  for,  111. 

Schools :  athletic  association,  199  ff ;  apparatus,  208,  220 ;  gen- 
eral participation  in,  202  ff ;  bungalows,  cost  of,  219 ; 
character  training  in,  147,  156;  costly,  174;  curtains, 
197;  "doing  something  for  the  boys,"  198;  family  at- 
mosphere in,  177,  185,  187,  196,  220,  222;  Gary,  155,  188, 
217;  gymnasium,  219  ff;  hikes,  205;  kitchen,  175,  192; 
large,  central,  226  ff,  229;  lunches,  187,  189;  modifica- 
tion of,  in  industrial  society,  154;  natural  surroundings 
for,  174,  180,  223;  new  relation  of  parents  to,  146  ff; 
Newton,  Mass.,  218;  outdoor,  172,  217,  225;  pageants 
and  entertainments,  197;  Park,  160,  188,  217,  218;  play- 
grounds, 205  ff ;  rural,  227,  231 ;  sewing-room  in,  195 ; 
trade,  156;  team,  228;  unprepared  to  cope  with  indus- 
trialism, 153. 

Scrap-books,  98. 

Servants,  effect  upon  children,  31,  32,  42,  43. 

Sewing-rooms  in  schools,  195. 

Sharpening  tools,  63. 

Shopping:  58,  59,  119;  sanity  in,  123. 

Social  life  for  adolescents:  89;  resourcefulness  in,  81,  84,  85; 
wholesome,  83. 

Stage  fever,  107. 

Stick,  use  of,  22. 

Stool,  use  of,  21. 

Suitability  of  tasks  for  children,  34. 

Suppressed  desires,  100. 

Surroundings,  natural  in  schools,  174,  180,  223. 

Telephone,  answering,  45. 

Temptation  to  create,  55,  57,  65. 

Tent-making,  64,  103. 

Toilet,  45. 

Tools:  books  as,  91,  94,  96;  carpenters',  57,  62;  necessity  for 

the  best,  60;  place  to  use,  61,  62;  sharpening,  63;  used 

in  early  childhood,  11,  14,  23,  24. 


INDEX  243 

Toys,  elimination  of  superfluous,  48. 

Toy  soldiers,  65. 

Trade  schools,  156. 

Travel,  6,  151. 

Tree  house,  77. 

Trunks,  checking,  51,  52. 

Walking  trips,  71,  74. 

Water,  playing  with,  19. 

Weather,  children's  relation  to,  49,  50. 

Women's  clubs,  188. 

Wood-working,  material  for,  62,  63. 

Working  mothers  out  of  home,  40,  42,  43,  138,  141. 

Workshop,  61. 

Wraps,  fixed  place  for,  46. 

Young  children:  and  household  machinery,  20,  21;  desire  in- 
dependence, 18,  19. 


The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series 

THE  Childhood  and  Youth  Series  is  the  first  sys- 
tematic attempt  to  give  to  parents,  teachers, 
social  workers  and  all  others  interested  in  the  care 
and  training  of  the  young,  the  best  modern  knowl- 
edge about  children  in  a  manner  easily  understood 
and  thoroughly  interesting.  The  various  volumes 
present  in  popular  style  the  results  of  research  in 
every  phase  of  child-life,  every  topic  being  handled 
with  strict  scientific  accuracy,  but  at  the  same  time 
in  a  simple,  concrete  and  practical  way. 

Special  emphasis  Is  laid  on  the  everyday  problems  arising  in 
the  activities  of  the  home  and  school,  the  street  and  places  of 
work  and  amusement.  Each  subject  is  discussed  by  a  prominent 
authority,  competent  to  deal  with  it  alike  in  its  scientific  and 
practical  aspects.  It  has  been  constantly  borne  in  mind  by  the 
luthor  of  each  volume  that  the  Childhood  and  Youth  Series  is 
intended  primarily  as  a  guide  for  parents  and  teachers. 

Much  of  the  literature  that  we  have  had  in  the  past  dealing 
with  such  subjects  has  had  no  popular  appeal  or  application.  It 
has  been  dry,  technical  and  unintelligible  for  the  average  mother 
—uninteresting  to  her,  at  least.  The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series, 
however,  is  not  academic  in  any  respect;  it  is  intimate  and  con- 
fidential, the  authors  taking  the  attitude  of  friends  and  advisers 
and  their  style  having  all  the  characteristics  of  convincing  heart- 
to-heart  talks.  If  they  are  always  scientific,  they  are  also  always 
sympathetic. 

In  the  general  field  of  the  child's  welfare  and 
progress  in  mind,  body  and  emotions,  the  practi- 
cal results  of  the  latest  scientific  study  are  set  forth 
in  clear  and  graphic  form. 

Questions  of  many  and  widely  varying  kinds  are  considered 
— questions  which  come  up  every  day  in  the  home  and  in  the 
school  and  which  parents  and  teachers  find  it  difficult  to  answer. 
fhe  problems  of  food,  nutrition,  hygiene,  physical  defects  and 


The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series 

deficiencies,  nerves  and  nervous  energy,  sleep,  stimulants  and  nar« 
cotics,  etc.,  receive  careful  treatment.  The  intellectual  phases 
are  considered  in  other  volumes,  devoted  to  perception,  mem- 
ory, reason  and  the  imagination.  Such  emotions  as  fear,  anger, 
pride,  shame  and  the  like  are  adequately  treated. 

In  matters  that  have  to  do  with  the  child's  moral  and  social 
well-being,  all  the  latest  theories  are  tested  and  explained.  The 
causes  and  prevention  of  juvenile  delinquency  receive  fullest 
consideration. 

All  the  aspects  of  a  rational  education  based  on 
the  nature  and  needs  of  childhood  claim  atten- 
tion here. 

The  various  types  of  schools,  the  various  methods  of  teaching 
particular  subjects,  the  relation  between  work  and  play,  learning 
and  doing,  the  school  and  the  community,  are  discussed  for  the 
benefit  of  parents  and  teachers. 

Another  group  of  volumes  deals  with  special  traits  of  child- 
hood and  youth, — their  reading  and  dramatic  interests,  clothes 
and  personal  appearance,  the  use  of  money,  etc. 

The  entire  series  is  under  the  general  editor- 
ship of  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Professor  of  Education, 
the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Every  book  in  the  Childhood  and  Youth  Series 
is  of  value  to  the  parent  who  wishes  the  best  for 
his  child  and  to  the  teacher  who  is  seeking  higher 
efficiency. 

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AUTHORS  OF  BOOKS  IN  THE 

CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES 

SARAH  LOUISE  ARNOLD,  Dean  of  Simmons  College, 
Boston;  author  of  Waymarks  for  Teachers,  Stepping 
Stones  to  Literature,  etc. 

J.  CARLETON  BELL,  Professor  of  the  Art  of  Teaching, 
University  of  Texas;  Managing  Editor,  The  Journal  of 
Educational  Psychology. 

FREDERICK  ELMER  BOLTON,  Dean,  School  of  Educa- 
tion, University  of  Washington ;  author  of  The  Secondary 
School  System  of  Germany,  etc. 

MARY  MARTHA  BUNNELL,  Instructor  in  Home  Eco- 
nomics, University  of  Wisconsin. 

C.  WARD  CRAMPTON,  Director  of  Physical  Education, 
New  York  City  Public  Schools;  author  of  Physiological 
Age. 

JESSE  B.  DAVIS,  Principal  of  Central  High  School,  and 
Vocational  Director,  Grand  Rapids;  author  of  Vocational 
and  Moral  Guidance. 

JASPER  NEWTON  DEAHL,  Professor  of  Education,  West 
Virginia  University. 

J.  CLAUDE  ELSOM,  Assistant  Professor  of  Physical  Edu- 
cation, The  University  of  Wisconsin. 

J.  J.  FINDLAY,  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Man- 
chester, England ;  author  of  Arnold  of  Rugby,  The  School, 
etc.,  etc. 

ARNOLD  L.  GESELL,  Department  of  Education,  Yale  Uni- 
versity ;  author  of  The  Normal  Child,  Primary  Education. 

COLONEL  L.  R.  GIGNILLIAT,  Superintendent  The  Culver 
Military  Academy,  Culver,  Ind. 

WILLIAM  HEALY,  Director  Juvenile  Psychopathic  Insti- 
tute, Chicago;  Associate  Professor  of  Nervous  and  Mental 
Diseases,  Chicago  Policlinic;  Instructor  Harvard  Summer 
School. 

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AUTHORS  OF  BOOKS  IN  THE 

CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES 

W.  H.  HECK,  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Vir- 
ginia; author  of  Mental  Discipline  and  Educational 
Values,  etc. 

FLORENCE  HOLBROOK,  Principal  of  the  Forestville 
School,  Chicago ;  author  of  Round  the  Year  in  Myth  and 
Song,  Studies  in  Poetry,  etc. 

DAVID  STARR  JORDAN,  Chancellor  of  Stanford  Univer- 
sity; author  of  Care  and  Culture  of  Men,  Footnotes  to 
Evolution,  etc.,  etc. 

C.  A.  McMURRY,  Director  of  Normal  Training,  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools,  DeKalb,  Illinois;  author  of  A  Series 
of  General  and  Special  Methods  in  School  Work. 

JUNIUS  L.  MERIAM,  Professor  of  School  Supervision, 
University  of  Missouri;  author  of  Normal  School  Educa- 
tion, etc. 

JAMES  T.  NOE,  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Ken-, 
tucky. 

FRANK  CHAPMAN  SHARP,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  The 
University  of  Wisconsin;  author  of  Shakespeare's  Por- 
trayal of  the  Moral  Life,  etc. 

ALFRED  E.  STEARNS,  Principal  of  Phillips  Academy, 
Andover,  Mass. ;  author  of  various  articles  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  Outlook,  etc. 

WINTHROP  ELLSWORTH  STONE,  President  Purdue 
University;  Member  of  the  Indiana  State  Board  of  Edu- 
cation. 

THOMAS  A.  STOREY,  Professor  of  Hygiene,  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  Secretary  Fourth  International 
Congress  on  School  Hygiene. 

M.  H.  STUART,  Principal  M-anual  Training  High  School, 
Indianapolis. 

BLANCHE  M.  TRILLING,  Director  of  Women's  Gymna^ 
sium,  The  University  of  Wisconsin. 

GUY  MONTROSE  WHIPPLE,  Assistant  Professor  of  Edu- 
cational Psychology,  Cornell  University;  author  of  Ques- 
tions in  Psychology,  etc. 

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The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series 

By  Winifred  Sackville  Stoner 

NATURAL  EDUCATION 

An  interesting  presentation  of  the  methods  of  teaching  by  play  used 
by  Mrs.  Stoner  in  the  education  of  her  daughter,  Winifred,  who,  as  a 
child,  has  attracted  attention  everywhere  because  of  her  remarkable  de« 
velopraent,  mentally  and  physically. 

By  Edgar  James  Swift,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  Educa- 
tion, Washington  University;  author  of  Mind  in  the  Mak- 
ing, etc. 

LEARNING  BY  DOING 

The  way  to  learn  how  to  run  an  automobile  is  by  running  it.  Pro- 
fessor Swift  shows  how  this  practical  principle  may  be  applied  to  history, 
literature  and  language-study.  A  book  that  breaks  up  monotony  in 
teaching,  stirs  enthusiasm,  makes  the  parent  and  teacher  see  the  child's 
point  of  view.  

By  William  A.  Cook,  Assistant  Professor  of  Education,  Uni- 
versity of  Colorado,  and  M.  V.  O'SHEA,  Professor  of 
Education,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

THE  CHILD  AND  HIS  SPELLING 

Knowing  how  to  spell  is  a  business  asset  and  a  social  necessity. 
Learning  how  to  spell  is  a  difficult  matter.  These  authors  have  investi- 
gated the  whole  spelling  question,  devised  a  method  that  is  simple  and 
scientific,  and  made  a  list  of  all  the  words  the  average  American  uses 
and  need  know.  ______________ 

By  Irving  King,  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Iowa ; 
author  of  Psychology  of  Child  Development,  etc. 

THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  AGE 

The  "teen  age"  is  the  critical  age,  the  dangerous  age  of  adolescence, 
when  the  future  of  the  child's  life  is  largely  determined  and  the  bending 
of  the  twig  inclines  the  tree.  Professor  King  here  shows  parent  and 
teacher  how  to  solve  the  difficult  and  all-important  problems  of  this  crisis. 


By  Mrs.  Frederic  Schoff,  President  of  the  National  Congress 
of  Mothers  and  Parent-Teacher  Associations. 

THE  WAYWARD  CHILD 

Mrs.  Schoff  has  investigated  the  cases  of  thousands  of  children  and 
from  this  deep  basis  of  practical  knowledge  has  written  this  message  to 
parents  to  help  children  to  a  better  chance  for  useful  and  successful 
lives. 

The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series  is  under  the  gen- 
eral editorship  of  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Professor  of  Edu- 
cation in  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  Each  volume 
is  provided  with  a  special  introduction  by  the  Gen- 
eral Editor,  analytical  table  of  contents,  lists  of 
books  for  reference,  and  full  index.  12mo,  cloth, 
Price,  each, 

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TYPES  OF  SCHOOLS  FOR  BOYS 

Including  discussions  of 

The  English  School,  by  J.  J.  Findlay,  Professor  of  Education,  Uni- 
versity of  Manchester,  England. 

The  American  Academy,  by  Alfred  E.  Stearns,  Principal,  Phillips 
Andover  Academy. 

The  Manual-Training  High  School,  by  Milo  H.  Stuart,  Principal, 
Technical  High  School,  Indianapolis. 

The  Church  School,  by  Eric  Parson,  Principal,  Pinehurst  School 
formerly  Master  at  Groton  School. 

Military  Schools  in  America,  by  Col.  L.  R.  Gignilliat,  Superintend- 
ent, Culver  Military  Academy. 

By  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher,  Author  of  Mothers  and  Chil- 
dren, A  Montessori  Mother,  etc. 

SELF-RELIANCE 

Practical  aid  to  parents  and  teachers  in  teaching  children  to  d" 
things  for  themselves,  written  by  a  mother,  teacher  and  keen  student. 

By  E.  A.   Kirkpatrick,    State    Normal    School,    Fitchbur& 
Mass.;  author  of  Fundamentals  of  Child-Study,  etc. 

THE  USE  OF  MONEY 

Sound  advice  to  parents  and  educators  on  teaching  children  how  to 
save,  how  to  spend,  and  how  to  equip  themselves  for  business  and  the 
conduct  of  household  affairs. 

By  Michael  F.  Guyer,  Professor  of  Zoology,  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

BEING  WELL-BORN 

The  author,  who  has  studied  the  whole  problem  of  heredity  and 
eugenics,  has  prepared  this  book  to  take  away  mystery  and  misunder- 
standing, and  to  enlighten  parents  and  teachers. 


By  Arthur  Holmes,  Dean  of  the  Faculty,  Pennsylvania  State 
College,  Author  of  The  Conservation  of  the  Child,  etc. 

BACKWARD  CHILDREN 

Written  in  popular  style  out  of  great  scientific  knowledge  to  help 
those  who  are  striving  to  help  slow  boys  and  girls  and  reclaim  the  men- 
tally arrested.  Discusses  the  causes  and  treatment  of  backwardness. 


By  William  Healy,  Director  Juvenile  Psychopathic  Institute ; 
adviser  to  the  Juvenile  Court,  Chicago. 

HONESTY 

A   study   of  the   various   causes    of   stealing   and   practical  remedies 
which  can  be  applied  in  home,  school  and  community. 


The  Childhood  and  Youth  Series  is  under  the  gen- 
eral editorship  of  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Professor  of  Edu- 
cation in  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  Each  volume 
is  provided  with  a  special  introduction  by  the  Gen- 
eral Editor,  analytical  table  of  contents,  lists  of 
books  for  reference,  and  full  index.  12mo,  cloth, 
Price,  each,  A 

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THE  best  developed  child  in  America,  Winifred 
Sackville  Stoner,  Jr.,  could  speak  several  lan- 
guages and  wrote  for  newspapers  and  magazines 
at  the  age  of  five,  and  yet  retained  all  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  a  healthy,  playful  child. 

At  the  age  of  nine  she  passed  the  college  entrance  examinations^ 
and  now  at  twelve,  she  has  mastered  eight  languages,  has  written 
nine  books,  is  a  teacher  of  Esperanto,  an  accomplished  musician, 
and  is  stronger  physically  than  the  average  child  of  her  age. 

She  is  not  a  GENIUS  nor  a  WONDER  CHILD,  but 
simply  a  NORMAL  CHILD  WELL  DEVELOPED  through 
a  system  of  NATURAL  EDUCATION  invented  by  her 
mother,  Mi's.  Winifred  Sackville  Stoner,  from  whom  she 
has  received  her  training. 

Any  mother  can  do  for  her  chi.'.u  what  Mrs.  Stoner  has  done 
for  her  daughter,  if  she  employs  M?  s.  Stoner's  methods. 

Any  inouier  can  learn  Mrs.  Stor.er's  system  from  her  book,  in 
which  sbc  analyzes,  outlines  *n-J  describes  her  entire  plan  as 
carried  out  during  the  educatjba  >f  7  er  daughter  from  the  cradla 
to  her  tenth  year. 

Natural  Education 

By  WINIFRED  SACEVTLLE  STONER 

Director-General  Wrojvsr.'s  Interr.  stioaal  Health  League 

is  a  book  which  every  j>a*ent  si  ,uld  read  and  study  as  one  of 
the  first  duties  of  devoted  and  successful  parenthood. 

Like  all  the  book.*  in  the  famous  Childhood  and  Youth 
Series,  Natural  Education  is  provided  with  a  special  in 
troduction  by  the  general  editor,  Prof.  M.  V.  O'Shea,of  the 
Department  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
an  analytical  table  of  contents,  carefully  selected  lists  of 
books  and  magazines  for  reference,  further  reading  and 
study,  and  a  full  index. 


The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publisher  4,  Indianapolis 


GET  in  tune  with  childhood.  Take  the  chil* 
dren's  point  of  view.  Find  how  work  and 
play  may  be  united  in  their  lives  in  happiest  and 
most  effectual  combination.  See  how  the  monot- 
ony of  the  daily  "grind"  may  be  broken  and  lively, 
wholesome,  compelling  interest  be  aroused  in 
home  study,  school  work  and  tasks  of  the  day. 

Successful  learning  depends  on  successful  teaching.  The  roman- 
tic spirit  of  youth  revolts  against  constraint,  and  the  teacher,  be> 
he  parent  or  pedagogue,  can  succeed  in  educating  the  child  only 
by  establishing  between  himself  and  his  pupil,  the  proper  sym- 
pathetic relation. 

Edgar  James  Swift,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  Educa- 
tion, Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  after  years  of  ex- 
tended experiment,  has  learned  ways  and  means  of  accom- 
plishing this  and  has  collected  a  vast  amount  of  valuable 
information  concerning  methods  of  turning  to  educational 
advantage  the  adventurous  overflow  of  youthful  energy. 

He  shows  how  home  and  school  studies  may  take  on  a  vital 
relation  to  the  actual  daily  life  of  children  and  how  enthusiasm 
for  their  work  may  be  inculcated  in  the  young.  All  this  is  told, 
In  a  manner  to  quicken  the  interest  of  parents  and  teachers,  in 

Learning  by  Doing 

By  EDGAR  JAMES  SWIFT 
Author  of  Mind  in  the  Making,  Etc. 

Make  the  child  as  happy  in  his  work  as  he  is  in  his  play  by  find- 
ing  how  you  can  appeal  to  his  individual  interests,  tendencies 
and  intellectual  traits,  and  how  the  learner  may  be  taught  with 
the  least  resistance  and  greatest  efficiency. 

This  is  precisely  the  book  for  every  parent  and  teacher 
who  wants  to  make  study  a  pastime  and  not  a  drudgery. 
It  is  included  in  the  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES,  the 
important  new  collection  of  books  for  parents  and  teachers. 

12mo9  Cloth, 

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CAN  your  child  spell?  Spelling  takes  more  at< 
tention  in  the  home  than  almost  any  othei 
subject  taught  in  the  schools.  The  drills  and  prac- 
tice exercises,  the  daily  preparation  for  subsequent 
work  in  the  class-room  call  for  the  parent's  co- 
operation. 

No  subject  taught  in  the  schools  requires  more  individual  at 
tention  than  Spelling,  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  who  is  continu- 
ally confronted  with  new  problems  as  to  how  best  the  subject  may 
be  presented  to  meet  individual  differences  on  the  part  of  pupils. 

William  A.  Cook,  Assistant  Professor  of  Education  in 
the  University  of  Colorado,  and  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Professor  of 
Education  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  have  conducted 
a  series  of  investigations  extending  over  a  considerable 
period,  with  a  view  to  contributing  to  the  solution  of  the 
various  problems  connected  with  the  teaching  of  spelling, 

First,  an  examination  of  the  spelling  history  and  abilities  oi  s 
Sarge  number  of  pupils  in  a  rather  general  way  was  carried  on 
Second,  a  study  was  made  of  a  small  group  in  a  very  thorough 
going  manner.  Third,  followed  an  examination  of  about  300,000 
words  in  common  usage,  both  in  speech  and  correspondence,  in 
order  to  determine  which  words  should  receive  attention  in  th« 
spelling  vocabulary. 

The  Child  and  His  Spelling 

By  WILLIAM  A.  COOK  and  M.  V.  O'SHEA 

contains  the  results  of  these  experiments,  and  presents  a  thor 
oughgoing,  practicable  explanation  of  (1)  the  psychology  of  spell 
ing;  (2)  effective  methods  of  teaching  spelling;  (3)  spelling  nee* 
of  typical  Americans;  (4)  words  pupils  should  learn. 

The  material  contained  in  The  Child  and  His  Spelling 
will  be  found  of  the  greatest  value  to  teachers  and  to  par- 
ents who  desire  to  co-operate  at  home  with  the  work  of 
the  school  ia  the  education  of  children.  This  work  con- 
stitutes one  volume  of  the  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 
SERIES. 

l%mo,  Cloth, 

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Publishers,  Indianapolis 


A  HUNDRED  thousand  American  mothers 
J\  venerate  the  name  of  Mrs.  Frederic  Schoff 
(Hannah  Kent  Schoff).  She  has  dedicated  her 
life  to  the  work  of  making  the  new  generation 
better,  stronger  and  more  efficient,  and  has  been 
an  inspiration  to  every  woman  in  the  land  to  do 
her  full  part  to  insure  the  future  of  America. 

Through  her  leadership  of  the  National  Congress  of  Mothers 
*nd  Parent-Teacher  Associations,  she  is  the  presiding  genius  of 
<*he  greatest  educational  movement  this  country  has  known. 

As  President  of  the  Philadelphia  Juvenile  Court  and  Pro- 
bation Association,  she  has  had  an  opportunity  to  study 
the  wayward  children  of  a  great  city.  She  has  carried  on 
extensive  investigations  among  men  and  women  confined 
in  prisons  and  correctional  institutions  to  learn  from  them 
at  first  hand  to  what  they  attribute  their  downfall. 

By  this  broad  experience  she  is  qualified  to  speak  with 
unique  authority  on  the  training  of  children  in  the  home, 
and  especially  on  the  problem  of  the j>vay ward  child. 

She  makes  a  forceful  appeal  to  parents  both  because  of  theii1 
natural  desire  to  guard  their  children  from  all  harmful  influ- 
ences and  because  they  realize  that  home  training,  which  comes 
first  of  all  in  every  child's  life,  moulds  his  morality.  If  any 
parent  doubts  this,  he  needs  more  than  ever  to  study 

The  Wayward  Child 

By  HANNAH  KENT  SCHOFF 

President  National  Congress  of  Mothersand  Parent-Teacher  Associations; 
President  Philadelphia  Juvenile  Court  and  Probation  Association. 

She  shows  beyond  all  doubt  that  the  early  training  in  the  home 
can  make  or  unmake  characters  at  will,  that  homes  in  which 
children  have  been  brought  up  carelessly  or  inefficiently  are 
largely  responsible  for  the  wayward  children  who  later  maks 
up  our  criminal  population. 

THE  WAYWARD  CHILD  is  one  of  the  books  in  the 
CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES,  undoubtedly  the 
most  important  collections  of  practical  educational  works 
for  parents  and  teachers  ever  produced  in  this  country, 
An  a  guide  for  the  home  or  school  it  is  unexcelled. 

12mo,  Cloth, 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


IF  YOUR  CHILD  grows  up  to  be  a  spendthrift 
blame  yourself.    It  is  the  fault  of  the  training 
received  in  childhood,  or  the  lack  of  it. 

But  parents  are  hard  pressed  for  ways  and  means 
of  teaching  their  children  how  to  use  money  — 
how  to  save  it,  and  how  to  spend  it. 

Should  a  child  have  a  regular  allowance?  Should  he  be  given 
money  when  he  asks  for  it  or  only  when  he  really  needs  it? 
Should  he  be  given  money  as  a  reward  or  as  a  payment  for 
services?  Should  he  be  allowed  to  work  for  money  at  an  early 
age? 

Professor  E.  A.  Kirkpatrick  has  made  a  special  study  of 
children  to  learn  their  attitude  toward  money  in  the 
home  and  the  world  outside.  He  has  carried  on  investi- 
gations to  determine  their  natural  inclinations  and  decide 
how  parents  may  encourage  the  right  inclinations  and 
curb  those  which  lead  to  the  unhappy  extremes  in  the 
use  of  money  —  miserliness  or  prodigality. 

The  Use  of  Money 

By  E.  A.  KIRKPATRICK 

State  Normal  School,  Fitchburg,  Mass.;  author  of  Fundamentals  of 
Child  Study,  The  Individual  in  the  Making,  etc, 

It  offers  sound  advice,  which  any  parent  will  be  fortunate  to 
obtain.  It  tells  when  the  child  should  begin  to  learn  the  real 
value  of  money  and  how  to  dispose  of  it  properly,  and  suggests 
methods  by  which  this  training  may  be  given.  It  clears  the 
mind  of  all  doubt  as  to  how  to  induce  thrift  in  the  child,  so  that 
in  later  life  he  will  be  better  equipped,  not  only  for  business, 
but  in  the  conduct  of  the  household  and  private  affairs. 

THE  USE  OF  MONEY,  like  all  the  other  books  in  the 
famous  Childhood  and  Youth  Series,  is  designed  to  be  of 
immediate,  practical  benefit  to  the  average  parent,  guard- 
ian or  teacher. 


Cloth, 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


WHEN  is  a  child  backward?  May  he  be 
backward  in  some  ways  and  forward  in 
others?  Are  children  backward  by  birth,  or  made 
so  by  neglect  or  faults  of  training  ?  What  are  the 
signs  of  backwardness  ?  Is  there  any  way  of  de- 
termining whether  a  child  is  permanently  back- 
ward? When  and  how  may  backwardness  be 
cured  ? 

These  questions  and  others  like  them  are  of  supreme  impor- 
tance to-day  to  teachers  and  parents.  People  are  seeking  light 
from  every  source  upon  the  problems  of  the  backward  child. 

Dr.  Holmes,  Dean  of  the  Pennsylvania  State  College,  has 
studied  backward  children  in  the  clinic  and  laboratory  as 
well  as  in  the  home  and  school,  and  he  is  recognized  as  a 
first  authority  in  America  on  arrested  development. 

Out  of  a  fund  of  scientific  knowledge  he  has  written  his  book 
in  simple,  sympathetic  and  popular  style  to  help  those  who  are 
striving  to  help  slow  boys  and  girls  and  reclaim  the  mentally 
arrested.  He  tells  the  parent  and  the  teacher  what  they  need  to 
know  in  language  they  can  understand. 

Backward  Children 

By  ARTHUR  HOLiMES 
Author  of  The  Conservation  of  the  Child,  etc. 

Dean  Holmes  treats  concrete  cases  of  backwardness  in  detail 
and  pictures  vividly  the  various  types.  Everything  he  says  is 
definite,  practical,  helpful. 

THE  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES,  in  which 
BACKWARD  CHILDREN  is  issued,  is  a  collection  of  books 
by  recognized  authorities  on  the  development  and  train- 
ing of  children,  under  the  general  editorship  of  M.  V. 
O'Shea,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

l&mo.  Cloth, 
The  Bohbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


HONESTY  is  not  an  inborn  trait.  It  is  not  the 
essential  inheritance  of  children  of  "good 
families."  It  is  the  delicate  product  of  careful 
training.  A  proper  regard  for  mine  and  thine  is 
effected  by  a  thousand  subtle  influences  of  hered- 
ity and  environment,  home  and  school  and  com- 
munity conditions,  physical  and  mental  health. 

Experts  have  subjected  the  whole  question  to  minute  scrutiny 
and  proved  that  the  cultivation  of  honesty  is  a  matter  of  personal 
application  to  the  individual  child.  They  have  laid  the  founda- 
tion for  an  entire  new  "Science  of  Conduct." 

Dr.  Healy,  Director  of  the  Juvenile  Psychopathic  Insti- 
tute and  adviser  to  the  Juvenile  Court  in  Chicago,  is  one 
of  these  experts.  He  gives  the  parent,  teacher  and  social 
worker  the  benefit  of  broad,  sane,  sound  observation. 

The  quickest  way  to  a  cure  for  stealing,  Dr.  Healy  believes,  is 
to  find  the  way  to  the  inner  mental  life  of  the  delinquent,  and 
be  reveals  how  this  may  be  accomplished  in 

Honesty 

By  WILLIAM  HEALY 

His  aim  is  to  prevent  and  to  cure  stealing  by  children.  By  th«* 
faithful  description  of  many  actual  cases  of  theft,  their  underly. 
ing  causes  and  successful  or  bungling  treatment,  he  shows  what 
to  guard  against  and  what  to  foster ;  how  to  make  a  proper  diag- 
nosis and  effect  the  cure.  He  writes  with  tolerance,  sympathy, 
kindliness,  for  he  loves  children. 

THE  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES,  in  which 
HONESTY  is  issued,  includes  works  on  the  special  traits 
of  childhood,  as  well  as  books  dealing  with  various  phases 
in  the  physical,  mental,  moral  and  social  development  of 
the  child. 

12mo,  Cloth, 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


THE  civilized  world  is  awakening  to  the  right; 
of  the  child,  and  to  the  fact  that  its  right  o 
rights  is  the  right  to  he  well-horn.  Heredity  i; 
recognized  as  a  factor  of  supreme  importance  ii 
determining  the  child's  nature;  yet  there  is  nc 
subject  on  which  there  is  such  general  ignorance 
and  so  much  superstition. 

What  is  "prenatal  influence,"  and  what  are  its  limitations' 
What  traits  and  habits  may  be  transmitted  ?  How  far  does  th< 
parent's  body  and  brain  and  character  affect  the  child's  heritagi 
at  birth,  and  how  far  the  more  remote  ancestor's  ?  Do  degen 
erate  parents  beget  degenerate  children?  To  what  extent  an 
physical  and  mental  defects  due  to  inheritance  and  not  to  en 
vironment  or  training  ? 

On  these  and  similar  questions  there  is  the  widest 
difference  of  opinion  and  belief,  and  the  grossest  error, 
among  intelligent  people  who  are  not  familiar  with  the 
latest  results  of  scientific  study. 

Professor  Guyer,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  who  has 
studied  the  whole  problem  of  heredity  in  a  thoroughgoing  way 
has  prepared  a  book  to  take  away  the  mystery  and  misunder- 
standing, and  to  enlighten  parents,  teachers  and  social  workers 
on  an  all-important  subject.  He  calls  it 

Being  Well- Born 

By  MICHAEL  F.  GUYER 

Professor  of  Zoology  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
Author  of  Animal  Micrology,  etc. 

His  work  includes  an  account  of  the  new  science  of  Eugenics 
which  is  striving  for  the  betterment  of  the  race,  the  conservation 
of  good  stock  and  the  repression  of  bad. 

This  concrete,  practical  book  on  Heredity  and  Eugenics 
naturally  falls  in  THE  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 
SERIES,  which  undertakes  to  treat  child-nature  from 
every  viewpoint,  and  which  is  the  most  complete,  scien- 
tific and  satisfactory  collection  of  books  on  child-problems 
now  published. 

l%mo,  Cloth, 

The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


THE  "teen  age"  is  the  critical  age.  Boys  and 
girls  cause  parents  and  teachers  more  anxiety 
between  thirteen  and  twenty  than  at  any  other 
time.  That  is  the  period  of  adolescence — the 
formative  stage,  the  high-school  age,  the  turning 
point  when  futures  are  moulded. 

It  is,  at  the  same  time,  the  period  at  which  the  boy  and  the  girl 
are  most  baffling  and  difficult  to  handle;  when  an  ounce  of  di- 
plomacy can  accomplish  more  with  them  than  a  pound  of  dictum. 

As  a  specialist  and  an  authority,  Professor  Irving  King 
has  prepared  a  veritable  handbook  on  parental  and  peda- 
gogical diplomacy  which  will  ease  the  way  of  parents  and 
teachers  in  dealing  with  children  during  the  formative 
period  and  lead  to  far  better  results.  He  devotes  special 
attention  to  the  question  of  co-education  and  the  question 
of  handling  mature,  maturing  and  immature  children  of  the 
same  age.  He  clears  up  the  problems  so  confusing  to  the 
adult  mind  and  offers  helpful  suggestions. 

The  ph3'sical  changes  which  take  place  during  the  early  ado- 
lescent age;  the  intellectual  and  emotional  developments  which 
parallel  them;  and  questions  of  health  and  school  work  as  well 
as  practical  matters  pertaining  to  the  conservation  of  the  energy 
and  efficiency  of  high-school  pupils  are  given  full  consideration  in 

The  High-School  Age 

By  IRVING  KING 

Assistant  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Iowa;  author  of 
Psychology  of  Child  Development,  Etc. 

No  parent  or  teacher  can  read  this  work  without  feeling  a 
keener  appreciation  of  the  vital  period  in  the  child's  life  and 
without  being  assisted  to  a  better  understanding  of  how  to  deal 
most  wisely  with  the  boy  or  girl  who  is  passing  rapidly  from 
rbildhoo^  tc  maturity. 

"VHE  HIGH-SCHOOL  AGE  is  one  of  the  books  in  the 
CL11LLEIOOD  AND  YOUTH  SERIES,  undoubtedly  the 
most  important  collection  of  practical  educational  works 
for  parents  and  teachers  ever  produced  in  this  country,, 
As  a  guide  for  the  home  or  school  it  is  unexcelled. 

12mo,  Cloth, 

The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Publishers,  Indianapolis 


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